


Case of Reeve

by Licoriceallsorts



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen, Minor Character Death, Post-Meteor, i think, it's a sort of dark comedy, quite a few ocs - Freeform, the WRO, the rape happens to an unnamed character offstage and is mentioned in passing, world-building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 05:31:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 13
Words: 25,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20109931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Licoriceallsorts/pseuds/Licoriceallsorts
Summary: Post-Meteor and the fall of Shinra Inc, civil society collapses. What follows isn't pretty. Reeve thinks he can do better. A story of how the WRO came into being.for the prompt: "Something post-OG with Reeve, funding, good intentions, politics, and ideally whatever degree of friendship you believe he has with at least one of the AVALANCHE crew. Cait Sith optional; at least a little worldbuilding about the post-Meteor logistical and economic situation a must. Gen please."Critique on this piece is very much welcome.





	1. Meteor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kieron_ODuibhir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kieron_ODuibhir/gifts).

**“Wherever he goes, the stench of death isn’t far off.”**

_ Case of Denzel _

On that day, the chosen day, as Meteor began it final descent towards Midgar, Director Reeve Tuesti was busy repeatedly hurling himself against the locked door of his office on the sixty-fifth floor of the Shinra Building. Lightning crackled in the sky. Red dust devils ripped tiles from rooftops and threw them about like thistledown - Reeve ducked as one came flying in through the jagged hole that had once been his panoramic executive window. His fellow Directors, Heidegger and Scarlet, had imprisoned him in this room after discovering his treachery, and now they were dead and he was starting to lose hope that anyone would remember he was here. The reactors had failed, the power was dead. The only light came from Meteor’s bloody death-glow. All the employees must have fled the building by now. 

A strong smell of hot earth and sulphur filled the air, mingled with the lingering stench of scorched paint and stressed metal. Less than seventy-two hours had passed since Weapon’s fireball had ripped through the top floor of the building, immolating everything in its path: the science labs, the presidential suite, the young President himself. Precarious as a house of cards, the Shinra Tower swayed in the winds that howled up and down the stairwells. Reeve had pushed his animatronic’s CGI visor up onto his forehead, the better to see what he was doing here in his own office. The microphone hung around his neck. Grit kept blowing into his eyes. The whole city creaked and groaned and trembled. 

One more he slammed against the door, forgetting, in his panic, that it opened inward. “Help!” he cried. “Let me out! I don’t want to die!”

Through the earpiece he heard Tifa’s voice, faint and tinny with distance, call out, “Hey! I’m glad everyone’s okay!”

“I’m not okay!”  he shouted. “I’m stuck here! I’m trapped! Please - “

Someone was rattling the door handle from the other side. A woman’s voice cried, “Hold on sir, I’ve got a key.”

“Polly?” 

“Lady Luck, don’t fail me now,” Cid’s voice crackled in his earpiece.

The door burst open, and a rather lovely young blonde woman clutching a torch tumbled into his arms. “Reeve, are you all right?”

She was a very junior employee in his department, and normally he would have rebuked her for addressing him by his first name. However, this particular young woman was allowed a certain leeway, not only because standing on formalities seemed ridiculous given their current life-or-death situation, but also because in her intern days the two of them had enjoyed some happy romps on the big executive leather sofa in his office. Since then she’d been promoted to deputy assistant infrastructure manage for Upper Three, and their romping had ceased when she realised he wasn’t serious about a future together. She'd quickly found herself a fiancé in Corporate Branding. Reeve had been more relieved than anything. He’d made it clear to her from the start that he was married to his job. 

All the same, he was extremely glad to see her. 

“Let’s get out of here,” he shouted.

They ran for the stairs. “Do you think the building’s going to fall down?” she shouted breathlessly.

“Fall down? No,” he shouted back. “I built it.” It was the lightning he feared, and the flying objects. This wind could reach in through the holes Weapon had punched in the walls, grab a man and toss him out as easily as if he were a leaf. 

In the course of their headlong flight down sixty-three flights of stairs, they stumbled across many other employees, lost and frightened and looking for someone to tell them what to do, who latched onto the Director of Urban Development like drowning men grabbing for a life buoy. On the cafeteria floor they picked up three cooks and a dishwasher; on the SOLDIER floor, a dozen third classes and some materia scientists; on the mail-room floor, a terrified teenager named Trevor; and on almost every floor, Heidegger’s Public Safety Maintenance troopers, bravely holding the positions to which they had been assigned earlier that day. Reeve ordered them to come with him. 

“Everybody, to the slums!” he cried. 

“Will we be safe there?” Trevor shouted.

Reeve was not a man normally given to foul language, but - “How the fuck do I know?” he shouted back. A gust of wind blew his words away before anyone could hear them. All he knew was that they'd be slightly safer under the plate than on top of it, at least until Meteor fell. Once that happened, probably the best place to be was wherever you would die fastest.

He started running in the direction of the Sector One station, and the others followed him, collecting more terrified lost souls as they went. Fear lent their feet wings. As they hurdled the turnstiles in the train station, an unbelievable noise rent the air: a scream of metal grinding against metal, a hiss like the unzipping of the universe, a noise so huge, so ominous, so far outside anyone’s experience, that Reeve couldn’t understand it and had to turn around and look back. 

The whole of the outer section of the fifth plate had been ripped clean off its moorings and was flying fifty feet above their heads as if it weighed nothing - like a gigantic petal torn from a flower the size of a city. Everyone instinctively ducked. Reeve told himself he’d only imagined the bodies he thought he saw falling. 

“Keep going,” he shouted. “Down the tracks! Don’t stop!”

He couldn’t have said how long they ran. Time had taken on the consistency of a dream. Eventually they reached the ground and threw themselves down onto it, panting, weeping, vomiting. Above their heads the plates rattled and grated; the support pillars trembled. Debris rained on them: brick dust and pebbles, stone chips and scraps of paper, cigarette ends and bottle caps…. Reeve wondered if he’d made a mistake leading them here. No one, surely, had forgotten Sector Seven. Some of his evacuees rocked back and forth, moaning. Some knelt and prayed. Trevor lay supine on the ground, arms flung wide, as if embracing his fate.

The wind died down, and in the brief lull before it picked up again Reeve heard the faint squeak of voices somewhere in the region of his collar-bone. The comms-phone earpiece had fallen out. He replaced it, and lifted his hand to pull down the visor, only to find it gone. His means of connecting to Cait Sith’s eyes had been lost somewhere on the way down. He hadn’t even noticed it fall. 

Static crackled in his ear. He adjusted the dial, and Barret’s voice came through, faint but clear. “What the hell’s gonna happen to Midgar?”

He fumbled for the microphone and lifted it to his lips. “I’ve been moving everybody to the slums, but with the way things are now - “

“It’s too late for Holy,” said Red XIII. 

“Where are you?” Reeve shouted. “What’s going on?”

A high-pitched whistling filled his ears. Through the cracks in the plate above, he glimpsed an unearthly, intensifying radiance, bluish-white in hue, cool like milk. The temperature was dropping. All the little hairs on his arms and neck stood on end. Fingers of the radiant light probed between the plates and illuminated the slums, bright as halogen searchlights. Reeve screwed his eyes shut. In his ears he could feel the air-pressure mounting. The pain was unbearable. Everyone groaned. Two little children they’d picked up somewhere along the way began screaming. 

_ These are my final moments _ , he thought. 

He didn’t know where Cloud and the others were, but he wished he were with them. Even if they were still down inside the crater. Anywhere had to be safer than this. He wished he’d taught one of them how operate Cait Sith once he was gone. He wished he hadn’t spent so much of his life being a coward. He wished he’d gone to see his mother more regularly; he wished he hadn’t been such a slave to his work. He wished he’d tried harder to talk President Shinra out of dropping the Sector Seven plate. Not that it really mattered now, he supposed - 

“What’s that?” shrieked someone.

Reeve opened his eyes. 

A sinuous filament of green light - no, not light,  _ mako  _ \- was heading towards them with a motion like a sine wave, smooth, swift, inexorable. He had seen this phenomenon before, or something like it. Whenever Cloud and his party had killed a monster, its dead body had evaporated into swirls of this very same substance. 

Over there, another.

“It touched me!” a woman screamed. 

And another - and another - soon, too many to count.  The rays of mako swerved upwards into the sky, converging on Meteor.

“This is it!” Reeve yelled at anyone who might be able to hear him. “Protect yourselves! Take cover!” 

Spotting a large cable spool lying not far away, Reeve darted over, crawled inside it, and wrapped his head in his hands. 


	2. Departure

When it became obvious that the world was not going to end after all, everybody went a little crazy. Reeve, Polly, Trevor and the whole gang of evacuees broke into a nearby pub and helped themselves to whatever they could lay their hands on. They drank, they laughed, they sang, they hugged one another and shared passionate kisses with total strangers…. So what if ten million tons of broken metal was still creaking and groaning above their heads? Who cared! They were alive, weren’t they? They’d survived Meteor, hadn’t they? Reeve, who hadn’t been this drunk since his undergraduate days at Junon Polytechnic, climbed onto the bar, stood unsteadily upright, and waving his bottle in the air shouted, “People! Friends! We’re Midgar! We’re indestructible!” to a chorus of resounding cheers.

Once he was back on the ground, the lovely Polly threw her arms around his neck and kissed him with a passionate eagerness that would have been impossible to resist, had he even been in the mood to try. The urge to rip off each other’s clothes was overwhelming, practically irresistible; he felt the lust in her, and she in him. _We’re acting like animals_, he thought wildly. Still, enough of the human remained that they managed to stumble off and find a private nook away from prying eyes before falling on each other like two starving predators at a kill.

Some hours later Reeve awoke to a splitting headache and a tongue that felt as if it had grown a coat of fur. Polly was sitting a little way away from him. The front of her blouse had been knotted together. All its buttons were gone. “Oh god,” said Reeve, “Polly, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean - “

Polly smiled at him. It seemed genuine. “You don’t need to apologise."

“But I - I mean - I didn’t mean - I don’t know what came over me.“ Talking made his head throb.

“Me neither. But I think…”

“What?”

“I think there’s a name for it. Disaster sex.”

Had it really been that terrible? He was probably a bit out of practice, it was true; he’d had so much on his plate lately -

“In a disaster,” she went on, “People are so pumped to find they’re alive, they go wild and sort of just - fling themselves at each other.”

“Animal instincts?” said Reeve, remembering his earlier thoughts.

“Exactly. And I mean, it was pretty intense, wasn’t it?”

“Was it?”

“Yeah.” She giggled. “I mean, wow, right?”

Reeve ran a hand through his hair. At least she didn’t think _he_ had been a disaster. Honour was preserved. But… What if she misinterpreted the situation as indicative of a desire on his part to reconnect on a more permanent basis? How was he to let her down gently? He had such fond memories of her intern days. The last thing he wanted was to hurt her.

“But it doesn’t change anything,” she went on. “I love Tyrrel and I’m going to marry him. Maybe we could call this - “

“An indiscretion?” Reeve suggested.

“A final fling. Tyrrel mustn't find out, it would only hurt him. I know I can trust you to be discreet. In fact, it would probably be best if we both forgot this ever happened.”

Reeve was very willing to oblige her. "I promise, my lips are - 

A loud, grating metal whine from overhead interrupted him. They both looked up. Through the hole in the ceiling they could see the plate, and through the hole in the plate they could see the rosy light of dawn gleaming off the flank of the Shinra Building. It had not fallen.

Polly said, “Reeve, not to change the subject or anything, but are you the President now?”

Swiftly he did a mental head count. Rufus, Heidegger, and Scarlet were dead. Hojo was dead too. The Director of the Turks was lying incapacitated in a hospital bed in Junon. As for Palmer, the lardy balloon had fled Midgar days ago and Reeve had no idea where he was now.

A voice inside his mind - the voice of temptation - cried, _At last! The power is yours! Seize your chance!_ Sternly he bade it begone. Yet the idea refused to leave him. Someone had to take command, and it seemed he was the designated survivor. Chosen by fate.

“I suppose I am,” he replied. “You wouldn’t happen to have a potion on you, would you?”

His PHS rang. He removed it from his pocket, opened it, put it to his ear, and only then paused to appreciate how extraordinary it felt to be doing something so banal, so normal, when life as they knew had just collapsed around them.

“Reeve?” It was Tifa. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re alive. Cait Sith stopped talking. Are you alright?”

“His battery probably needs recharging. I can’t do it from here. The reactors are kaput. There’s no power.”

“I’m amazed the PHS network is still working.”

“The radio masts have back-up generators. They’ll work for a month or - “

_Beep beep beep_, said his phone. _Good-bye forever, I’m dying…._

The screen light blinked and went out, and with it, all Reeve’s hopes of the Highwind swooping in to carry him off to safety died too.

_Damn it,_ thought Reeve, _damn damn damn damn…_

Polly said, “I need to go find Tyrrel - “

“Just give me a minute,” said Reeve. “I’m thinking.”

They couldn’t stay where they were. It wouldn’t be long before the looting started, if it hadn’t already. In the short term, they needed to get to somewhere more secure. In the longer term, they needed to get right out of the city. With no water, no power, no sewage, no hospitals, mako leaking everywhere, and monsters running amok, Midgar had become a death trap. One could almost say the Old President had finally succeeded in kicking down his sandcastle in the air, albeit from beyond the grave.

_It isn’t fate that choose you,_ his conscience whispered in his ear. _You chose this path for yourself. You saw the light; you turned away from evil, and sided with the good. You have earned this power. You will use it wisely. You’re the right man for this job. These people need you. Lead them._

“There’s a PSM transport depot not far from here,” said Reeve. “I’m going there with anybody who wants to come with me.”

Polly rose to her feet. He saw that one of her shoes was missing. “I’m going to find Tyrrel.”

He feared for her safety, but he didn’t feel entitled to stop her. “Polly, listen. We have to get out of Midgar. We'll be setting out from the transport depot at noon, with a convoy. Go get Tyrrel and join us. If you're not on time, we can’t wait.”

* * *

  
The Sector Six transport depot was on high alert, bristling with firepower and razor wire, ready to repel any attacks by rioting citizenry. They calmed down a little when they saw Reeve’s executive ID. The Shinra military had a profound respect, amounting almost to reverence, for the chain of command. Their captain opened the gates, and Reeve brought his evacuees in.  
He had already chosen where they should go next. Gannet Island, approximately five miles square, lay on the coast several hours drive north-east of Kalm. On this island there was a SOLDIER research facility that Reeve had designed himself. A single causeway was all that connected it to the mainland. It had originally been intended as a containment unit, somewhere a rogue SOLDIER could not easily escape from, and anywhere that was difficult for SOLDIERs to get out of would be equally difficult for unwelcome guests to get into. It had back-up mako generators backed-up by diesel generators, and a small plant for producing wave-power as well. It had labs and workshops and a little harbour. It would be amply stocked with supplies - tinned food, potions, ethers, antibiotics, helicopters, motorbikes, fuel, men, materia…

In short, Gannet Island was so obviously the perfect place to take refuge from the collapse of civilisation that Reeve only feared someone else might get to it first. Someone like Palmer, for example. The tufty ball of custard had to be out there somewhere, and for all his buffoonery, Palmer was no fool. Or if not Palmer, then maybe that canny old Turk Veld. In any case, there was no time to waste.

He explained his plan to the captain. The captain saluted and said, “We’re ready when you are, sir.”

The journey to Gannet Island would take at least five hours. All the trucks and fuel they needed were right here in the depot. “Load up the evacuees,” said Reeve. “Give every truck a case of water. Whatever dry food you have in store, divide it up between them.”

“And blankets,” said the captain. “Spare tires. Rope. Firelighters. Flares. Torches.”

“And weapons,” said Reeve. “All the weapons we can carry.”

The troopers were efficient. By noon the convoy was ready to move out. Yet still Reeve held back on giving the word. He was waiting for Polly and Tyrrel.

At five minutes to one, the captain said, “Sir, if we don’t leave soon, it’ll be dark before we get there.”

“Five more minutes.”

He divided his attention between his watch and the gates. At three minutes to one, Polly came limping in. She was alone. “You didn’t find him?” asked Reeve

Polly’s face was streaked with dirt. Her hands were bruised and raw, the fingernails were broken. “I did,” she said. It was all she would say.

He wanted to comfort her - he felt he ought, both as her boss and as a human being - but there was no time, they should have been on the road an hour ago. He had sixteen trucks in his convoy and getting on for four hundred people. All their lives were in his hands. And she couldn’t ride in the lead vehicle, which he was driving. It was fully loaded with thirteen Third Classes, all the SOLDIERs in their party. Some kind women leaned out over one of the tailgates and called, “There’s room for her here,” so Reeve let the captain help her climb in, while he took his seat behind the wheel of the lead vehicle.

Just as he was turning the key in the ignition, the earpiece he’d forgotten he was wearing crackled into life. “Reeve?” said Cloud’s voice.

_Ah,_ he thought, _they’ve figured out how to charge Cait’s battery._

“Reeve? Are you there? Can you hear me?”

He almost replied. Almost. A Yes was on the tip of his tongue. But then the thought came to him: what if he told Cloud where he was going, and Cloud decided to join him?

His usefulness to Cloud was at an end. He knew that. He had the utmost admiration and respect for Cloud, absolutely. He deeply regretted not having spent more of his life being more like Cloud. Cloud was a hero. They were all heroes. But…

Before they became heroes, they had been terrorists, bent on wiping Shinra, which included himself, from the face of the earth, and replacing it with… What, exactly? Reeve was in no doubt Cloud expected him to fade into obscure retirement now that he’d atoned for the crime of being Shinra by aiding them in their quest.

“Reeve? It’s Cloud. Answer if you can hear me.”

As the leader of an oddball band of adventurers, Cloud had been in his element, but he was hardly fit for the job of rebuilding the entire world. A boy barely out of his teens! Cloud had saved the planet, yes, but that mission was over. Now it was time to save civilisation, a task that called for a different, more mature skill-set: experience, wisdom, managerial know-how. Out of everyone in Cloud’s party, who had more of those skills than Reeve did?

He took the receiver from his ear, switched it off, and put it in his pocket.


	3. Geostigma

Reeve led his convoy through the Midgar badlands. A stream of refugees was moving towards Kalm. They pulled handcarts or pushed wheelbarrows piled with their worldly goods; they carried children on their shoulders, or pet cats in their arms. Some bore weapons: everything from cricket bats to semi-automatic rifles. Some trudged along staring at their shoes. Many limped. All were covered in red dust; even their hair was stiff with it. Here and there lay bodies. People stood or knelt over some of the corpses, weeping and wailing. Others had been abandoned. 

Reeve's convoy churned a yellow cloud of dust in its wake. The refugees it drove past were forced to cover their mouths and noses. Some knelt in the dirt, begging for a ride. One man planted himself in the road directly in front of Reeve’s vehicle but Reeve knew that if they stopped, they'd be swarmed by desperate people. On his orders, a Third Class leapt out, sword raised, and ran at the man. The man turned and fled.

Mothers held up small children. _ Please, just take my baby _.

Reeve made himself deaf to all pleas. His lorries were overloaded already. More than a few times, a refugee with energy to spare sprinted after them, grabbed hold of a tailgate and tried to jump inside. The PSM troopers always pushed them off. Reeve was thankful for the protection these soldiers offered. Without them and their guns, the lorries would have been violently snatched from his control many miles back. 

_ We’re a lifeboat _ , he kept telling himself. _ If we take too many on board, we’ll all sink. _

The walls of Kalm were in sight when the second-to-last lorry hit a pothole at an awkward angle and snapped its front axle. There was no way to fix it, and no room for that lorry’s passengers in any of the other trucks. However, some of them were essential personnel: engineers, radio operators, medics; plumbers, electricians, and carpenters. Reeve didn’t want to leave them behind. So he went from truck to truck, banging on the side of each one and calling, “Everybody out,” and when they were all more or less assembled in front of him, he began to make choices: you and you, go seek shelter in Kalm; you, you and you, get back in the trucks. He felt proud of his decisiveness, just as he had when he’d thwarted Scarlet’s attempt to execute Tifa in Junon. It seemed that when he made his mind up, he could really get things done. Needs must, he supposed. 

Rearranging the transport took over an hour. They were still on the road when night fell. The moon rose, blood-red from all the meteor dust in the atmosphere, and Reeve switched on his high-beams. Creatures skulked in the darkness on either side of the road, their eyes briefly catching the light as he passed. A large bird darted across the road and he had to brake sharply, throwing everyone huddled in the back into a heap. “Are you all right?” he called to them. They replied with a muted cheer. 

Eventually they came to the causeway that linked the mainland to the facility. Two dozen Third Class SOLDIERs stood guard at the outer gate. Reeve showed them his ID. They consulted together, checked a list, made a phone call on the walkie-talkie, and eventually waved his convoy through to the inner courtyard, where the brigadier in charge of the facility stood waiting to greet him with the kind of salute one customarily offered to a superior officer. “Mr Director Tuesti, sir! I’m the C.O. here. And may I say, I’m bloody relieved to see you. You’ll be taking command, I assume?”

Reeve wasn’t sure exactly what kind of salute he should give in return, if any, and he was almost too exhausted to think straight, so he merely nodded. 

The SOLDIERs were helping the evacuees climb down from the backs of the lorries. “We can put up tents for them,” said the Brigadier. “And we’ll get the kitchens to rustle up some scoff. If you’d like to go with my subaltern, sir, we have a private room you can use. You look like you could do with a wash and brush-up. It must have been hell out there.”

* * *

The next day the Brigadier formally made over to him the Commanding Officer’s office, a spacious if sparsely furnished room whose windows afforded a view of the high concrete wall ringing the facility. The large steel desk was gun-metal grey. Reeve sat down and began drawing up lists. On the assets side, he had fifty-three Third Class SOLDIERs, ninety-nine PSM, and two-hundred odd civilians, mostly Shinra employees, of various ages, genders, and abilities. He had two helicopters and enough fuel for about one hundred hours of flying, twenty-six military lorries with mako-powered engines, four jeeps and fourteen motorbikes likewise, and two bikes that ran on petrol. It wasn’t much for a world that had just been plunged into total meltdown. A drop in the ocean, really. How should he best deploy these scanty resources? Locally, in the countryside, where food was produced? Or in the urban areas, where the need would be greatest? What should he focus on first? The prevention of epidemics? Power supplies? Schools? Repairs to the PHS network? Getting the railways up and running again? 

While Reeve was struggling with his priorities, the Brigadier went outside to review his new cohorts. “If you don’t work, you don’t eat,” he told them, a phrase that was soon to become the Gannet Island mantra. Anyone with catering experience was enrolled in the kitchen patrol. Doctors and nurses went to the medical corps, radio operators to the communications corps, biologists and materia chemists to the research corps. SOLDIER and PSM personnel were sent across to the parade to let the subaltern check their dog-tags and receive their new company assignments. If an evacuee had no particular skills, they were invited to choose between the army or the maintenance corps. An entire platoon of men armed with spades were sent out to dig a row of latrines. 

Reeve had never worked closely with military men before. As the days passed, he quickly discovered he liked their way of getting things done. Whenever he made a request - or, as the Brigadier phrased it, gave an order - they didn’t argue with him; they didn’t make excuses; they didn’t go away and come back forty-eight hours later, the task still undone, with a long list of reasons why it couldn’t be done the way he wanted and an even longer list of suggestions they’d come up with for better ways to achieve the stated objective, as his sector heads in Urban Development had tended to do. They simply _ obeyed. _Reeve found their attitude refreshing. He also quickly learned that when a soldier volunteered advice, he would be wise to take it. 

“Sir, you should let me take care of the day to day running of this facility,” said the Brigadier. “I’ve been doing that job for the last five years. No sense in re-inventing the wheel. With our current numbers, we've got enough supplies here to last twelve months, if we ration them carefully. You need to decide whether we’re going to run an open-door policy. Once word gets out, more people will come.”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t think we should turn away anyone who’s willing to work. Water’s not a problem. We can always dig more latrines. I was thinking, sir, we should form foraging parties. It would give the troops something to do. The farms hereabouts aren’t short of produce, but the way things are right now, they’ll be struggling to get to market.”

Reeve gave the suggestion some thought. Lack of money might prove a problem; the facility kept only a trifling amount of petty cash in a strong box, since all their wants had been supplied by the company. Reeve, in his haste to flee his office, had forgotten his wallet on his desk back at the Shinra Building. He literally didn’t have a gil to his name. But did money have any value now? Without the fathomless wealth of the Shinra Corporation behind it, was a fifty-gil note good for anything but wiping one’s backside? You couldn’t eat it or wear it. In such situations, didn’t people usually revert to a barter economy? The farmers had food. Reeve had skilled tradespeople, medics, dentists, mechanics. Surely they could work out a trade that would benefit all parties concerned. 

He could help them get their harvest to market. The facility’s troops could provide an escort, protect them from the marauders who were bound to arise in the wake of the collapse of civil authority. He could make sure the local townspeople got fed. Of course, they’d have to transport their produce by chocobo. Fuel was too precious to spare…

After everything he’d learnt during the campaign against Sephiroth, it seemed morally impermissible to keep using mako, and yet what choice did they have? The facility’s mako reservoirs were full. Reeve could not justify dumping this vital commodity into the ocean. Midgar’s reactors would never generate power again, and that, surely, was a good thing… And yet, how were people going to cook their food? Keep their homes warm? Would they be sliding backwards now into a world where everybody went to bed when the sun set? A world lit by candlelight and hearthfires? How would they communicate with one another? By carrier pigeon? His imagination could scarcely compass it. Were all humanity’s advances of the last hundred years to be lost as if they’d never been? 

No. People wouldn’t accept such a drastic reduction in their standard of living. They would find new sources of energy. The coal mines would re-open, he supposed. People would start drilling for oil again. Entrepreneurs would build wind turbines and solar panels. In fact, there was no reason he couldn’t set up a little wave-generator factory right here on Gannet Island. He had the technicians. He had the workshops. He could salvage material from the huge pile of scrap metal that had once been Midgar….

If he, who was no businessman, could think like this, how many other minds were thinking alike? So was that the answer? Let capitalism rebuild the world? Where some saw disaster, others would see opportunity. Human ingenuity, thirsty for profit, would stir itself to meet human need, as Shinra Inc. had done with mako power. 

But wouldn’t that inevitably lead to another Shinra?

And if the answer to that question was _ yes _ \- if another Shinra was fated to rise - wouldn’t it be better for everyone if the man at the head of it was a man of principle such as himself? 

But that was a thought for a few years down the line. Right now, what he really needed to know was if, and when, the banks would be opening for business. Capitalism couldn’t get to work fixing things if it had no capital to work with. 

Soon after Meteor had first appeared in the sky, the Midgar banks had shifted their operational centres to their Junon branch offices. Reeve’s account had been transferred along with all the corporate accounts, the Shinra family accounts, and tens of thousands of other accounts both business and personal. Moreover, everybody who could afford to - which meant everybody who was anybody on the Plate - had evacuated their families to Junon weeks before Meteor made its final descent on Midgar. What this meant was that Junon was now the _ de facto _ financial capital of the world. If their computers were still working, all the the pre-Meteor banking records should have survived. And if their reactor was still pumping out electricity, then the computers should still be working. 

Reeve needed to get down to Junon and see what was happening there. 

Someone knocked on his door. It was Trevor, the spotty teenage boy from the Shinra mail room. He looked scared. “The Brigadier told me to come get you, sir. There’s something strange going on. Some people are sick. You need to come see.”

Trevor led Reeve to one of the medical tents. As soon as he stepped inside, his nose was assaulted by the smell of iodine, vomit, and something pungently bitter-sweet that reminded him of mako. Screens concealed the examination tables from view. A row of people in obvious pain sat hunched over on a long bench, evidently waiting to be seen. One of them was Polly. He’d been so busy since they’d arrived, he hadn’t had the time to check up on her and see how she was doing. 

“Reeve!” She tried to stand, but her legs wouldn’t hold her. 

He hurried over and crouched down beside her, taking her hand. “Polly, what’s wrong? Are you ill?”

“I don’t know. Yes. I have a terrible headache. All my joints are aching. I think it might be the flu.”

A fit of coughing seized another of the women on the bench. She covered her mouth with a handkerchief. It came away black. 

“You shouldn’t touch them,” said a passing medic. “They might be contagious.”

Reeve jumped to his feet, releasing her hand. Polly turned it over to show him the oozing weal on her palm. He immediately glanced down at his own hand, shocked and dismayed to see its fingertips were stained as if he’d been dabbling in ink. He wiped his hand on his trouser leg, and raised his eyes to her face. Now that he knew what he was looking for, he could see a similar bruise-like weal almost hidden in her hairline, and a third at the base of her throat. A streak of greyish pus matted her hair. Tears ran down her cheeks, yet she wasn’t making a sound. 

Reeve strode off to to find the Chief Medical Officer. “Can’t you please take a look at my friend? And give her something for the pain?”

“There’s nothing we can do, sir,” the woman replied. “We’ve tried everything.”

She looked exhausted. Worse, scared. And she was the best doctor they had. A cold ripple of fear ran up Reeve’s spine. He tried to silence it, demanding. “Have you given her an elixir?”

“They don’t work.”

“Heal materia, have you tried that?”

“Of course we have,” the doctor snapped, then rubbed her eyes and said, “Sorry, sir.”

“What’s wrong with her? What is it? Have they all got it?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen this combination of symptoms before. None of our treatment protocols work. I think it might be a new disease.”

The chill crept round his ribs and clutched his heart. Didn’t they already have enough to deal with? “A _ new _disease? Is that possible? What’s causing it?”

The doctor shrugged. 

“Will she get better? What’s the prognosis? Do you know?”

“Come with me and you can see for yourself…”

She took him into the tent next door, where four bodies lay in a row, shrouded in bedsheets stained with blotches of black pus. “That one,” she pointed at last body, “Died half an hour ago, and that one,” she pointed at the first body, “Is patient zero. She came to us at eight o’clock last night with festering lesions on her back and thighs, complaining of joint pains and fever. She died at sixty-forty-three this morning.”

Reeve’s fingertips felt as if they were on fire. One more he scrubbed his hand against his trousers, asking as he did so, “Is it contagious?”

“Believe me, sir, I wish I could answer your questions. All we know is that we’ve got eight symptomatic people in the treatment tent, and four deceased who were suffering from the same symptoms when they died. We need to set up a quarantine, stat. Until we know what we’re dealing with, nobody who shows any signs of infection should come into contact with healthy people.”

* * *

Communications between the Gannet Island facility and the outside world were intermittent at best. If you got on a chocobo, crossed over to the mainland and rode to the top of the highest hill, nearly an hour away, you might, if you were lucky and the wind was in your favour, be able to make a PHS call to Midgar. Kalm’s service had stopped working altogether. The Shinra information network had broadcast its last television and radio transmissions the day Weapon attacked Midgar. Now, when you turned on the television in the R&R room, your viewing options were wavy lines or a snowstorm. The communications corps possessed a hand-cranked radio on which they were sometimes able to make contact with ham radio operators in Kalm and Midgar. Junon was unreachable. Their only consistently reliable radio contacts were with two other Shinra military installations further east, one on the coast north of the Grasslands, and one on Quadra Island. 

Everyone they spoke to told the same story: towns swollen to breaking point with refugees; food shortages, civil unrest, riots; vigilantes taking the law into their own hands; and on top of it all, like salt in their wounds, this new disease, painful, disfiguring, and unpredictable. It went by different names: the black rot, the Meteor curse, the ooze, geostigma. Some of its victims died within hours of showing symptoms, leaking soiled pus from every pore. Others, like Polly, survived the acute phase only to become chronically sick. No one knew of a single case where a patient had fully recovered. 

A month passed and Polly clung to life. She didn’t get better, but she didn’t get worse. It shamed Reeve now to remember how he’d leapt away from her when the medic suggested the illness might be contagious; how he couldn’t stop wiping his hand on his trousers, and how after he’d left the medical tent he went straight to his quarters and scrubbed his hands in a frenzy of carbolic soap and hot water. They knew now that this ugly disease could not be passed from person to person. It seemed to strike at random, through mere bad luck, infecting one member of a family or one comrade in a platoon, leaving the others untouched. Knowing this, people no longer feared coming into contact with the infected: the sick were allowed to live among the healthy, doing whatever work their condition allowed, and the dying were nursed with compassion. 

Gannet Island’s population was growing. Every day saw the arrival of at least one new ‘volunteer’, as Reeve called them, though the Brigadier continued to prefer the term ‘recruit’. Some came riding on chocobos; some tottered in on blistered feet, having walked from Midgar or even further away in search of a purpose in life - or, more prosaically, food and shelter. Many sailed in, on everything from rowboats to yachts. An entire squadron of Heidegger’s crack Garuda regiment arrived in a convoy of jeeps, three of which had run out of fuel with only a mile to go. 

These newcomers represented a complete cross-section of pre-Meteor society. Reeve tried to make time to talk to each one personally, even if only for five minutes. Many were ex-Shinra military, but just as many were ordinary civilians. Each had his or her own reasons for wanting to join the Gannet Island volunteers, but it seemed to Reeve that all these stories boiled down to one thing: they wanted their old world back.

A world where when night fell you could flick a switch and take light for granted. 

A world in which they had a place to call their own, where their mothers, fathers, lovers, children were waiting to welcome them home.

A world where a four-pack of toilet paper, if you were lucky enough to find it, didn’t cost you as much as a month’s supply of basic food rations. 

A world where you could walk into any convenience store and choose from fifteen different flavours of cola. A trivial loss, one might think, yet Reeve had noticed how many of the conversations in the mess hall centred around nostalgic reminiscences of favourite junk foods. 

A world of libraries and schools, art galleries and concert halls, where one could pick up a phone, dial a number, and hear the voice of a loved one on the other side of the world. 

A world where a family could drive from Midgar to Kalm without being attacked by armed men, stripped of all their possessions including their clothes, the women raped, the men shot, and the children taken for slaves. This was a thing that had happened more than once. Reeve was actively on the lookout for psychologists and therapists, although working in the kitchen gardens and tending the animals seemed to help with the trauma too. 

A group of volunteers had established a missings persons bureau. In the old days, the Shinra days, they would have kept their information on a digital database. Now, in these dark post-Meteor, post-Shinra days of uncertainty, they used filing cards stored in old military biscuit boxes. 

Whenever Reeve toured the facility, in the workshops and the kitchens, in the medical tents and in the soldiers’ barracks, he overheard the same kind of talk:

“Look, I’m not saying Shinra was perfect, they did a lot of terrible things - “

“We’ll probably never even know the full extent of all the things they did - “

“Right. But at least they made the trains run on time. D’you know what I’m saying?”

“Oh, man. To think how we used to take trains for granted….”

Wherever the new arrivals came from, they brought the same news. Things were bad out there. Martial law in Junon. Armed gangs seizing power in Kalm. Bandits raiding the Grasslands farms with impunity. No law at all in Midgar: only the survival of the fittest. 

Reeve came to a decision. Two decisions. Firstly, the little fiefdom he’d established on Gannet Island was clearly doing better than most other places on the eastern continent, a clear sign, he felt, that its borders should be extended, bringing as many souls under the umbrella of its protection as possible. Secondly, he really needed to go out and see for himself what was happening elsewhere. Particularly in Junon. He wanted to know who had taken charge there, what their plans were, and what they were doing with Shinra’s billions…. And whether, as the senior surviving Director, he could lay claim to those funds himself. 

Reeve rose from his desk and went into the next room, where his newly appointed assistant sat - Trevor, once a mail-room boy with his name on his cap, now transformed by his grey serge military uniform into Warrant Officer Biswas. _ Those uniforms _ , thought Reeve, _ They’ve got to change. We can’t go around looking like Shinra. We need a new image. And a new name. _

Warrant Officer Biswas had been doodling on his blotter, but sat up straight and saluted when his commanding officer approached.

“Tell the Brigadier I need a helicopter to take me to Junon tomorrow,” said Reeve. “I’d like to set off at 0600 hours. And ask him to organise an escort - four Thirds and six PSM.” There was no guarantee that a friendly reception awaited this ex-Director in what had once been Shinra’s second city. 


	4. The Shinra Manager

Their flight path took them directly over Midgar. From far away it looked as it had always done: a mighty disk floating weightlessly above the earth. An illusion. As the helicopter drew closer, the truth became visible. Midgar was a wreck. The fifth and sixth plates were gone entirely - ripped up and tossed aside by the whirlwinds, he assumed - and the rest had buckled and tilted. Red dust covered every surface, as if the city had been rusting for centuries already rather than mere months.

Reeve thought of his mother. He couldn’t imagine she was still alive. Her choice, he reminded himself. He’d tried to persuade her to leave. All the other executive families in Upper Five had been evacuated after Avalanche blew up Number One. She had dug her heels in, refusing to go. 

“I’m a busy man,” he warned her. “I don’t have time to worry about you.”

“I won’t leave my garden.”

She was so exasperating. “Ma, what garden? Nothing grows in that garden, nothing ever will.”

“I won’t leave my memories of your father.”

“Why are you determined to be a burden to me?” he’d cried. 

Looking down at his city from the helicopter window, he saw that even now life crawled all over it. Human beings, doing what they did best: scrounging, salvaging, repairing, surviving. It made him think of ants crawling over a dead bird. Once, as a child, he’d sat for a whole afternoon watching ants strip a bird carcase of its flesh, revealing the complex connections of the white bone structure beneath. Fascinating... 

Was that a human face peering up at them from one of the Shinra building’s blown-out windows? 

That building was full of secrets. And those secrets, like the monsters Hojo used to keep in his lab, needed to be contained. They couldn’t be allowed to escape into the street. Some of them, after all, concerned him. It had been the job of the Turks to keep those secrets secret, but where were the Turks now?

Even supposing they were alive, Reeve couldn’t imagine them willingly putting their lives on the line to protect  _ him _ . The young President, to whom they’d been fanatically devoted, was dead. The Turks' guilt lay in their willingness to carry out orders. And who had given those orders? The Board of Directors. In reality, of course, the President gave all the orders, but technically speaking, if you looked at the articles of Shinra’s incorporation all the Directors shared responsibility equally. And who was the last surviving Board member?

What if, for example, certain transcripts were to be made public?

“ _ Talking won't make a bit of difference. But I prepared something in case this happened. Why don't you listen to this… I didn't want to do this... using dirty tricks and taking hostages… But this is how it is... no compromises…. You have to do as I say…” _

That poor little girl. Shame washed over him. She’d deserved better. Aeris deserved better. They’d all deserved better. Sacrificing themselves to save the planet. And yet… 

Surely he did not deserve to be judged only on the evil he’d done? Surely no man deserved that. He’d changed, hadn’t he? Their example had inspired him to change, to become the better man he’d always had it in him to be. Who had rescued them from Scarlet’s gas chamber? Who had risked his own neck to spy on Shinra for them? Who was the only Board member to fight side by side with Avalanche in the battle to save the planet’s life?

People needed to know about the good he had done. He needed to make sure of it.

* * *

Junon airfield was bustling with traffic. Reeve recognised the serial numbers of several of the helicopters sitting on the tarmac. They were from the Shinra fleet, though the company insignia had been painted over, replaced by a coat of arms featuring a pelican and a leaping dolphin. Armed guards patrolled the airfield’s perimeter. Some of them wore the same Shinra uniform as his own volunteers, although again the red-and-gold diamond had been unpicked and discarded. Others were dressed in shorts, t-shirts and flip-flops. Some were smoking cigarettes. All of them toted sub-machine guns. 

The sight of Reeve’s entourage disembarking from their helicopter galvanised this motley crew into action. Reeve and his men quickly found themselves surrounded. His first, purely instinctive reaction - to angrily demand whether they knew who he was - was rapidly abandoned in favour of putting his hands in the air. A man wearing captain’s pips strolled over from the shade of a nearby corrugated awning, ground his cigarette stub under his heel, and asked if they’d like to step inside the processing area, a stretch of tarmac that had been sectioned off with crash-barriers and barbed wire. At the far end of the processing area stood a row of booths and a metal desk like the one in Reeve’s office back in Gannet Island. Behind the booths and the desk a large dolphin and pelican banner hung on the brick wall. 

The official seated at the desk recognised him. “Mr Reeve Tuesti! Welcome to the Republic of Junon. May I ask what your business is here?”

Reeve wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. “The  _ Republic  _ of Junon?”

“That’s right, sir. Government of the people, for the people. Your business?”

“Since when has Junon been a Republic?”

“Since Liberation Day, sir.”

“LIberation Day?”

“Some people call it Meteorfall Day.”

“But - Who’s in charge?”

“That would be me, sir.”

“You’re in charge of Junon?”

The official gave an oily, self-satisfied laugh. He was sitting; Reeve was standing. “I’m in charge of the airfield, sir. President Aurum Pryce is in charge of Junon.”

_ Aurum Pryce _ . That name sounded familiar, but Reeve couldn’t place it. “Then… my business is with your President, I suppose.”

“Very good, sir. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to welcome you. Can I see your port entry authorisation, please?”

“I’m sorry?”

“If you don’t have a port entry authorisation, we can issue one here. That’s three hundred and eighty-two gil per person, plus two hundred and ninety-six gil per weapon. I assume the weapons are licensed?”

“What?” Those numbers seemed completely random to Reeve. 

“In these troubled times, we can’t allow armed men to roam our streets willy-nilly. I’m sure you understand. If you don’t have a weapons licence, we can issue one here. A twenty-four hour licence costs one hundred and fifty gil, a forty-eight hour licence is two hundred and seventy-five.”

“But I’m only staying for a couple of hours.”

“The twenty-four hour licence is the minimum we issue, sir.”

“That’s barefaced extortion!” Reeve cried.

The official smiled. “If you don’t like the way we do things in Junon, Director Tuesti, you are free to leave. We wouldn’t dream of holding you again your will. Oh, and are you carrying materia? Please hand it over. We’ll look after it for you against your departure.”

Reeve couldn’t remember ever feeling so powerless. 

He gave the official his executive set of mastered Barrier, mastered Heal, and mastered Esuna, and received a stamped, dated chit in return. Digging deep into his pockets, he produced enough gil to pay for himself, one Third, and that Third’s sword, to enter Junon. The rest of his entourage headed across the tarmac to what looked like an old shipping container converted into a bar. The official handed him the necessary letters of passage. Reeve saw that the documents were - or had been, in a previous life -  _ Shinra Inc. Employee Travel Reimbursement form SEC/ETR062. _ The official crossed out the letterhead and wrote  _ Republic of Junon _ above it. Reeve presumed they hadn’t got around yet to printing their own stationery. If printers were still printing. If paper mills were still producing paper. 

“Where will I find Aurum Pryce?” he asked.

“In the Presidential Palace, where else?”

Reeve assumed - correctly, as it turned out - that ‘Presidential Palace’ meant Junon’s Shinra Building.

He asked about a taxi and was laughed at. Seeing no alternative, he and his Third began walking. As soon as they left the airfield, they found the streets of Junon thronged with people - shoppers, hawkers, stall-holders, ragged refugees, beggars, and pick-pockets too no doubt, not that Reeve had anything left in his pocket to pick. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like to force his way through a busy crowd. That last time he’d been in Junon, he’d ridden in the Presidential cavalcade. 

Where were Rufus’s scarlet and gold banners now? 

The Shinra logo had been chiselled from the building’s front entrance, leaving a ugly square scar on the marble. A group of thuggish-looking men lounged aimlessly in the doorway. One of them was picking his teeth with a bowie knife. When Reeve tried to go in, they blocked his way. “One hundred gil,” said the knife-man.

“But I just paid at the airfield.”

“You paid to get let into Junon. Seeing the President, that’s extra. But him,” the man pointed his knife at the Third, “He stays outside. No freaks allowed. It’s the law.”

The Third shrugged. “I’ll wait for you there, sir,” he said, pointing at a bar a little way down the street. 

“Before you go, could you lend me a hundred gil?” asked Reeve. 

No wonder this city was full of beggars. 

“You can follow me,” said the knife man. 

How humiliating it felt to be led like a stranger through corridors he knew so well. They passed the door to what had once been his own office whenever work brought him to Junon. Who was sitting behind that door now? The gold-plated statue of the Old President had vanished from its plinth; the foyer looked forlorn without it. At every turn, Reeve saw discoloured places on the walls where the company logo had been ripped out. 

The ante-room to the Presidential suite was stuffed with people, all of them looking hot, tired and anxious. “Wait here,” said the knife-man. Reeve moved to the window and stood looking out at the view. The sea hadn’t changed, even if the cannon was no longer there to cast its long shadow. Memories flooded his mind. How many hours of his life had he spent in this very room? The Old President had enjoyed keeping people waiting, losing no opportunity to make the point that his time was more important than Reeve’s time, or anyone else’s. The young President, by contrast, had always been meticulously punctual. 

When at last he was invited to go in, Reeve surprised himself with a spark of genuine anger at the sight of some presumptuous stranger sitting at the President’s desk. “Aurum Pryce?”

Pryce didn’t stand up. He didn’t extend a hand in greeting. He didn’t offer Reeve a chair. He said, “Well, well, well. Reeve Tuesti. Long time no see.”

“Your face seems familiar,” said Reeve. “Didn’t you used to work in Midgar?”

“Your Excellency,” said Pryce. 

“What?”

“You must address me as ‘Your Excellency’. You say it like this: ‘Didn’t your Excellency used to work in Midgar?”

“Well, didn’t you? Your Excellency?”

The honorific stuck in Reeve’s craw, but he forced it out regardless. There was nothing to be gained from being difficult. He was an engineer, a pragmatist. Times changed and one had to change with them. Whoever this fellow had been back in the old days, those days were gone and he was now the power in Junon. Reeve would be sensible and show him respect. 

“I used to be a section manager in Weapons Design,” said Pryce.

“Ah - “

“Director Scarlet sent me here to supervise the transport of the cannon. Then Rufus ordered me to stay here and keep the office running. I was the highest-ranking executive left - “

“Which makes you President?”

Pryce fingered the gold chain of office hanging round his neck. It looked very much like one of the ornate, gem-encrusted collars Scarlet had loved to collect. Reeve wouldn’t have been at all surprised to learn that it had been taken from her safety deposit box. 

“Let’s be clear,” said Pryce. “I’m not the President of Shinra, Inc. I’m the President of the Republic of Junon. After the idiot President died - “

“The idiot - ? Do you mean - Rufus?”

The young President could have been called many things, thought Reeve, but  _ idiot _ was not one of them. 

Pryce laughed scornfully. “You’d have to be a complete idiot to mismanage things as badly as he did. He had the world handed to him on a plate! The old President, now, he was a great man. He dedicated his life to building his empire... And then his stupid kid goes and ruins everything in a matter of months. When I think of the high hopes we felt when Rufus first took over... ‘A New Age’. Remember that, Director? More fool us. The boy was a prize dolt.”

“I don’t really think that’s fair,” said Reeve, feeling instinctively that one ought not to speak ill of the dead. “Rufus inherited the crisis. He didn’t create it. He did his best.”

“And his best wasn’t good enough. We wouldn’t be in the mess we are now if the old man was still alive, I’m telling you. Now look, I’ve got a full day, so let’s cut to the chase. You didn’t come here to apologise for the Idiot President’s mistakes. What is it you want?”

“Well, ah, I - “

“Because if you think you can walk in here and challenge my authority, put that thought out of your mind right now. Nobody cares anymore what rank you used to hold in the company. That’s history. I’m not your subordinate, I’m the goddamn  _ President _ of Junon; I represent the will of the people, and we don’t take kindly to Shinra types trying to tell us what to do. Now, I’ve got nothing against you personally, Director, so you can take this as a friendly warning. The people of this city have been pushed around by Shinra long enough. We’re taking our fate into our own hands. Your citadel has fallen. Junon is the capital of the world now.”

Reeve, who had been doing some very rapid thinking while Pryce delivered this little speech, said, “I haven’t come here as a representative of Shinra.”

“No?”

“Far from it. As you say, Shinra’s day is done. I - I represent an organisation…. A  _ private _ organisation… That is, we’re a volunteer organisation dedicated to reconstructing our world, our - uh - shared world…”

“And what’s it called, your organisation?”

“The, uh - the World - uh - Regenesis - Organisation.”

“Regenesis?”

“It means a new beginning - “

“I know what it means, I’m not a moron. Sounds like Shinra B.S. to me.”

“I assure you - “

“What do you want? You’re not getting money.”

Reeve drew himself up to his full height. “Didn’t I just say we’re a volunteer organisation? I don’t want anything from you. I came here to visit my bank - and out of a humane concern for the welfare of the people of Junon.”

“The people of Junon don’t need your concern. And the banks are shut. I closed them to prevent a financial panic. Most of that money is ill-gotten gains anyway, Shinra thievery. It belongs by rights to the people of Junon.”

“But - “

“I don’t have time to argue with you. Like I said, I’m a busy man. If you’ve got something to offer me, I’ll listen, otherwise don’t waste my time.”

If the citizens of the republic of Junon ever got to see a single round gil of the billions stashed in Junon’s frozen bank accounts, Reeve would eat his own beard. Nevertheless, there was no point in arguing further. The money was out of his reach. For now, at least, he needed to resign himself, and move on to the other pressing issue. “Has Junon been badly affected by the epidemic?” he asked.

“What epidemic? What are you talking about?”

“The new disease - “

“I haven’t heard of any new disease. That’s a lie. There’s no epidemic here.”

“But you must have. It’s everywhere. They call it the black rot, or the geostigma - “

“I told you, there’s no disease in Junon. How dare you come in here spreading rumours? Nobody’s going to get sick in  _ my _ town. Junon’s the safest place in the world. I think you should go now.” Pryce pressed his intercom. “Corporal Jenkins, show my guest out, please.” To Reeve he added. “Go straight from here to the airfield. Leave Junon and don’t come back. If I see you in my town again I’ll have you arrested.”


	5. Veld

Reeve wasn’t a man who often allowed his temper to get the better of him, but when he walked out of Pryce’s office he was so angry he could hardly see straight. Thus, he failed to spare a glance for the man sitting quietly on a bench in the hallway. His mind was so entirely consumed by Pryce’s affront to his dignity, Pryce’s theft of the considerable fortune in his bank account, and Pryce’s bare-faced denial of the epidemic, that he did not notice the man on the bench rise to his feet; he wasn’t aware of being followed down the stairways and corridors and through the atrium and marbled entrance out into the street. Shading his eyes against the glare of the sun, he looked around and tried to remember which bar his Third had gone to. 

Close to his shoulder, a voice from the past murmured, “Reeve.”

Was he surprised? Not really. He should have known word of his arrival would reach the old Turk’s ears. Reeve turned to look at him. “Veld. I didn’t know you were still in Junon.”

How strange to remember that this senior citizen was Vincent Valentine’s contemporary. Eternal youth and beauty lay on Vincent like a curse. The old man in front of him had a weather-beaten, jowly face and bushy grey grandpa eyebrows. One eyelid drooped. Grey stubble covered his cheeks, as if he’d forgotten to shave. No blue serge suit, no red Shinra tie: Veld wore faded grey corduroys, a pale yellow cotton sweater, and leather gloves, no doubt to conceal the fact that one of his hands was a prosthetic. He looked anonymous and completely unthreatening, but this, Reeve knew, was merely his trick of invisibility, which he could turn on and off like a lightbulb. When Veld wanted to be seen, he was seen. 

“Let’s keep walking,” said Veld. “I’ve sent your Third on ahead. Junon’s an interesting place just now.”

“That's not the word I'd choose.” Reeve’s anger was still raw. “It stinks of bribery and corruption.” 

“Quick of you to notice.”

“That so-called President. Whathisname Pryce. He’s a robber baron. Was he actually elected, did they have an election?” 

“Keep your voice down.”

“What happened here, Veld?”

“Power abhors a vacuum.”

“Nature,” said Reeve. “It’s  _ nature _ . Nature abhors a vacuum.”

“Human nature abhors a power vacuum, then.” 

“He told me to get out of town before he threw me in prison. Can you believe it? Who does he think he is? And what about you? Does he know you’re here? Does he know who you are?”

“Who am I?” Veld smiled. “Just a retired pensioner trying to live a quiet life.”

“What are you doing here?”

“We’re simply monitoring the situation.”

Reeve stopped in his tracks and turned to face the Turk. “What do you mean, ‘we’? Who is ‘we’? Who’s working with you? Who are you working for? Dear God - it’s not Pryce, is it?”

Veld blinked like an old codger who couldn’t see so well any more (although his eyes looked every bit as sharp as Reeve remembered), and said mildly, “Sorry, my mistake. Old habits die hard. There’s no ‘we’ any more. Shinra’s finished, you know.”

“Yes, my very recent humiliation at the hands of one of Scarlet’s jumped-up middle-managers with delusions of grandeur has left me in no doubt of that, thank you. He’s stolen my money. What am I supposed to do for money?”

“Try Kalm. I heard the banks have reopened. Though they probably won’t have much in the way of reserves.” Veld put a hand under Reeve’s elbow and nudged him to keep walking. “So, what’s keeping you busy these days? I heard you left Midgar.”

“Midgar’s on the verge of collapse. I mean that literally.”

“They’ve started building a new city. On the edge of the old.”

“They have?”

“That’s not you?”

“No, I - “

“I wonder who it is, then,” said Veld. 

“But that’s crazy,” said Reeve. “There isn’t a deadlier place on the planet right now. Everything’s contaminated, the air, the water, the soil…”

“People cling to what they know. That’s human nature too. What about you, Reeve? Somebody told me you’d set up shop in the SOLDIER facility on Gannet Island.”

So the old fox had his ear to the ground. No doubt his information network remained fully operational, and the so-called ‘lost’ Turks were still running around doing their Chief’s bidding as if the good old days had never ended. No surprises there. If Reeve had had to put a bet on which department would emerge intact from the collapse of Shinra, he would have chosen Administrative Research. Veld had always been an ally worth cultivating. Perhaps that was more true now that ever before. 

“What exactly have you heard about me?” Reeve asked him. 

“People say you’re planning to re-build Shinra.” 

”I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth.”

“So you’re not planning to set up a little robber kingdom of your own?”

“Has someone accused me?” Reeve was honestly a little shocked. He knew his reputation wasn’t spotless, but surely it was better than that?

His indignation amused Veld, who chuckled and said, “But that’s what the world has come to. President Pryce here, Director Tuesti on Gannet Island, whoever is running Edge… A bunch of little war-lords with their little power bases fighting their little territorial wars. Stealing and plundering to pay their armies. Press-ganging children - “

“We cannot allow that to happen!” Reeve exclaimed. 

Veld shrugged. “Shinra’s finished. The lights are going out all over the world.”

“No,” said Reeve. “No, Veld. I refuse to let that happen. I didn’t fight the Jenova War in order to - “

He broke off, because Veld wasn’t listening. Doubled over in helpless laughter, the old Turk was groping for the support of a nearby lamp-post, his other hand clutching his belly. Veld saw an actual tear run down his cheek. 

“Have I said something funny?” asked Reeve stiffly.

“What the fuck,“ Veld sputtered, “Is the Jenova war?”

“You may not be aware that I helped Avalanche defeat Sephiroth.”

Veld roared with laughter all over again. 

“I fail to see the humour.”

“You? You? Fought a  _ war _ ? Give over. That robot cat of yours has seen more action than you have. Oh, fuck me, I’ve got a stitch now. Oh my god, Reeve, thank you. I haven’t laughed this hard since - well, years.” 

“I helped to save the world,” said Reeve with dignity. “There isn’t much in my life I’m proud of, but I’m proud of that.”

“Oh Reeve. Reeve. False humility doesn’t suit you. You were born pleased with yourself and you’ll die that way. Don’t be ashamed of it. It’s how you keep bouncing back.”

“We need the rule of law,” Reeve insisted. 

“You remember what it was like before Shinra?” asked Veld.

“Of course I don’t. You’re the old man, not me.”

“It was war. One war after another. With short intervals of peace. Gave the women a chance to breed more cannon fodder.”

“We’re not going back to that world,” said Reeve.

“Who’s going to stop it? You?”

“I can try.”

“You and whose army?”

“Mine,” said Reeve. 

Veld grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. “Good for you. If I meet anyone looking for a cause to fight in, I’ll send him your way. I haven’t forgotten I owe you a favour. What’s it called, your army?”

“The World Regenesis Organisation.”

“Hmm. Not bad. Sounds official. Though right now, anything sounds better than Shinra. Let’s hope it lives up to its name.”

Reeve was remembering the favour Veld owed him. “How is Tseng? Is he out of hospital yet?”

“Don’t ask me. He discharged himself just before Meteorfall and I haven’t seen him since. Don’t know where he went. We’re not in contact. He still hasn’t forgiven me, you know.”

Reeve did not believe a word of it. The Turks bent the truth into whatever shape best suited their purposes, and anyone who wanted to do business with them needed to remember that. If they told you the truth, it was because they had decided  _ you _ were suitable for their purposes, and that wasn’t necessarily a good thing to be. 

Veld took a used envelope from his pocket, tore it in half, produced a felt-tip pen, and scribbled something on the envelope, which he then handed it to Reeve. “My call sign. Keep in touch. It’s not encrypted, though, so don’t say anything you wouldn’t want the world to hear. What else did I want to ask you? Oh, yes - Your new friends. What’s happened to them?”

Reeve was a little embarrassed to admit he didn’t know. “They’ve all… gone home, I think.” 

“If I happen to run into them, d’you want me to tell them where they can find you?”

Reeve couldn’t picture it happening. Cait Sith had been their comrade. Reeve Tuesti was nobody to them. Cloud, Tifa, Barret - they didn’t even know what he looked like. They could pass him in the street and never recognise him, though his own heart would know them in an instant. And maybe it was better to leave things that way. 

Back at the airfield, he went to the desk to present his chit and collect his set of executive materia. A girl barely into her teens was occupying the chair. She did not know where the official had gone. Reeve gave her the chit. “I’ll just pop back into consignment and fetch them for you, sir.” She was gone half an hour, and when she returned she said, “Are you sure you handed them in, sir? I can’t find them anywhere.”

“I’m sure,” said Reeve.

“Well, it’s a mystery. I don’t know where they can have got to. Why don’t you fill out this form and take it over to Lost Property? I’m sure they’ll turn up eventually, and you can pick them up next time you’re passing through. That’ll be sixty-seven gil, sir.”

Reeve thought about the shelves full of mastered materia in the store-room back at the island. “You know what?” he said to her. “Just keep them.”

* * *

“I’ve re-named us,” Reeve told the Brigadier that evening. “From now on, we’re the World Regenesis Organisation. Our mission is to rebuild our world into a place humanity can be proud of. Anyone who wants to harm this planet will have to go through us first.”

“Right-oh, sir,” said the Brigadier, saluting. 

Reeve took what remained of the bottle of whiskey they’d been sharing, went back to his quarters, and stayed up all night designing the World Regenesis Organisation’s logo. In the morning he showed the Brigadier the fruit of his efforts. “Is that a mouse?” said the Brigadier. 

“No, man, it’s a…”

But what  _ was  _ Nanaki, exactly? Neither wolf nor lion, both wild and tame. One of a kind. Like Aeris. 

Suddenly the right word came to him. “A guardian,” he said. “That’s what this is.”


	6. Cloud

Several months passed. The World Regenesis Organisation on its island sanctuary continued to grow and flourish. More volunteers arrived. The best days were those that witnessed a joyful reunion: a wife found her husband, or a wandering father discovered the child he had long been searching for. On such occasions, the catering corps dipped into their carefully guarded stock of sugar to bake a celebratory cake, and the whole island partied. 

Every new arrival told the same story: in the outside world, brute force prevailed and the epidemic continued to spread. Worse than the disease itself was the terror it inspired. People fled before it. Reeve heard tales of children and aged parents abandoned to die, of patients walled up alive, burnt to death in their beds, or driven from their homes to fend for themselves in the wilderness. 

Any such outcast who managed to stagger as far as the Gannet Island causeway found a safe haven at the W.R.O.. Reeve’s scientists had definitively established the disease was not contagious. In the blood samples taken from infected persons they had found cells resembling the altered cells of a SOLDIER operative. Theoretically, then, SOLDIERs should have been immune. Yet as far as the W.R.O. statisticians could tell, the morbidity rate among SOLDIER was identical to that of the general population. Their mortality rate was much lower, however. Right now his scientists were working on the hypothesis that the infectious agent was something in the water. Should we chlorinate? asked Reeve. That would be a good idea, said the scientists, if we had any chlorine. The chemical factory used to be in Midgar. It was gone now. 

On a more positive note, they were pleased to report that, as far as they could tell, nobody had contracted the disease at the W.R.O. facility. All the patients in the sick bay had already been infected before arriving on the island. Many died, but just as many lived, and found ways to make themselves useful. On her good days, Polly helped out in the kitchen gardens. 

Reeve thought to himself,  _ Veld was wrong.  _ _ The lights haven’t gone out everywhere. My W.R.O. is a light in the darkness. And our light will keep growing stronger. _

* * *

One Wednesday afternoon Reeve was sitting at his metal desk, sketching some design ideas for new W.R.O. uniforms and idly wondering where he could source the fabric and how to pay for it, when Warrant Office Biswas knocked at his door to say, “Front gate called, sir. There’s a man with a delivery for you. He says his name’s Cloud Strife.”

Cloud had found him! 

At once powerful conflicting emotions surged in his breast. On the one hand - Cloud had come to him! Cloud, his hero; Cloud, who was everything he wished to be but knew he wasn’t; Cloud had sought him out! 

On the other hand, why?

Cloud wasn’t the sentimental type, and this almost certainly wasn’t a friendly visit. Had he come to warn Reeve off? To shut down his facility? To take him out like Sephiroth?

Or to take his W.R.O. away from him? 

There was only one way to find out. “Ask Mr Strife to come in,” he said as calmly as he could, though inwardly his thoughts were spinning, one part of his mind thinking,  _ I’m the hero here, I’m their leader, he won’t find it easy to wrest these people from me _ and another part was thinking,  _ I hope the real me won’t prove too much of a disappointment to him. _

Good god - were his hands actually shaking?

“We already asked him, sir,” said Warrant Officer Biswas. “He won’t come in. He says can you come out, sir.”

Feeling it would be undignified to run, yet unable to contain his haste, Reeve treated his volunteers to the sight of their commanding officer speed-walking across the causeway. His heart was beating like a teenage boy on his first date. Look, there he was! That yellow shock of hair! Unmistakeable! Thank goodness for all the Thirds on guard duty. They might not be able to take Cloud down, but they could hold him up, give Reeve time to get away. 

Oh, but where on earth did he find that_ marvellous_ motorcycle? A customised version, if Reeve wasn’t much mistaken (and when it came to machines, he was never mistaken) of the Hardy Daytona Mark II. Double front wheels for maximum cornering stability and shortened braking time; hands-free hip-based steering for fighting your way through monster-infested wastelands, six sword slots, and what looked like - yes, it really was! - a dual throttle. What an absolute beauty! The perfect partner for a questing warrior in a dangerous world.

Tied to the bike’s pillion seat was a large cardboard box.

Seeing Reeve approach, Cloud dismounted from his motorbike. His blue eyes had lost none of their strangeness. One moment they were full of life; the next, vacant. They could look through you while looking straight at you. You’d been seen, assessed, dismissed, and those eyes were back scanning the horizon in search of whatever it was they were looking for. 

Reeve’s fears began to dispel. 

_ The boy’s still as unsettled as ever _ , he thought.  _ That’s too bad.  _ Now that Sephiroth was dead, he’d hoped Cloud could lay his demons to rest and take it easy. If any man on earth had earned the right to a quiet life, it was Cloud Strife. 

“You’re Reeve?” said Cloud.

“I am,” said Reeve.

“Tifa told me to bring you this - “ Cloud began.

Typical Cloud, straight to the point. But now that he was sure Cloud meant him no harm, Reeve wasn’t having it. Holding out his hand, he said, “My dear Cloud, I cannot tell you how much I’ve longed for this day. It’s a great honour and pleasure to meet you in the flesh at last.”

Cloud stared at the proffered hand as if he’d never seen one before. Then, abruptly, something clicked; the blue eyes flashed into life, and he took Reeve’s hand and shook it firmly. “So, Reeve, we meet at last,” he said. “I thought you’d be….”

“Furrier?” Reeve laughed.

“Younger, I guess.”

“You must have had a long journey. Where have you come from?”

“Edge.”

“The edge of Midgar? I’ve heard people are building a new settlement there. Is that where you live now?”

“Yeah. Tifa’s got a bar there. It’s pretty popular. I do the heavy lifting. And some deliveries on the side. That’s why I brought you this. Tifa said you’d want him.”

He untied the cardboard box and lifted it to the ground. Reeve already had a pretty good idea of what - or who - was inside, but he opened it anyway, for the pleasure of greeting an old friend.

“I think he needs a new battery,” said Cloud, a little apologetically. “And there might be some bits broken. Marlene couldn’t keep her hands off him. Tifa says she hopes you can bring him back to life. We all, uh - We kind of miss him.”

“Won’t you come in?” said Reeve. “Have some refreshments, at least?”

Cloud looked past him at the multiple sets of gates, the guards on the causeway, the razor wire, the high walls. “I won’t, thanks. Tifa’s expecting me home for dinner. You should come see her sometime, she’d like that. Ask for Seventh Heaven, or just Tifa’s bar. Everybody knows it.”

“Barret’s daughter is with you?”

“Yeah.” Cloud was getting back on the bike, checking the mirrors. Leaving already. 

“Barret too?”

“He’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“Gone to see the world,” said Cloud. “To try to fix it.”

“Yes, that sounds like something he would do.”

The engine roared into life.  _ Roared _ was exactly the right word, thought Reeve. This motorbike was a living creature, full of furious energy, eager to be gone. 

“Gotta mosey!” Cloud shouted, and then laughed out loud as he wheeled away, steering the bike with his body, waving one hand in farewell. 


	7. Edge

Reeve couldn’t get the thought of Edge out of his head. He felt he ought to go there. He really _needed_ to go there. In Edge, he might be able to find certain difficult-to-obtain parts for Cait Sith’s repairs. He ought to do a recce anyway, just to find out how the land lay. And if Tifa Lockhart would not be averse to a friendly call from an ex-Shinra executive, he would very much like to see her. 

And yet the journey would be arduous, dangerous. They were running low on helicopter fuel. He wasn’t a fighting man like Cloud. He didn’t have a Hardy-Daytona, and even if he had, he wouldn’t have been able to ride it. 

Two days after Cloud’s flying visit, one of the volunteers came to see him with proposal. In the days before Meteorfall, this man had worked as a master brewer at Midgar’s Zolom brewery. He wanted to start up a brewery on the island. He'd already thought of a name for it: ‘Guardian Brand Beer’. If they went to Midgar, they might be able to salvage the copper vats from his old workplace.

Reeve said he would consider the suggestion. It wasn’t a bad idea. A little alcohol went a long way towards smoothing the wheels of social interaction. The island was beginning to feel crowded, and their beer supplies were strictly rationed. He didn’t want them to start brewing rot-gut in home-made stills. That kind of stuff killed people. 

What finally clinched his decision, however, was the Brigadier’s announcement that they were running low on SOLDIER stimulant. “We’re getting through it faster than I anticipated. I never imagined so many SOLDIERs would come to join us. And when you factor in the patients…”

Reeve hadn’t known until the Brigadier explained it to him that SOLDIERs needed regular mako showers. Without this treatment, the Jenova cells in their bodies would shrivel and die. Untreated SOLDIERs would gradually lose some of their super-strength, most of their hyper-acute senses, and all of their ability to instantaneously heal themselves. Reeve was not at all opposed to this eventuality, and neither was the Brigadier, in principle. But the withdrawal process had to be gradual. SOLDIERs took their indestructibility for granted. They needed time to re-learn how to survive in a world where a single bullet, or a fall from a roof, or a kick from an angry chocobo, could kill them.

Moreover, the withdrawal process was excruciatingly painful. This was where the stimulant came in. Shinra’s scientists had developed it to dull the pain caused by the activity of Jenova cells in a human body. It was also the only medicine that eased the suffering of their sick patients. “Either we lay our hands on some more, stat,” said the Brigadier, “Or we face the prospect of pain-crazed SOLDIERs running amok and patients dying in agony.”

It was decided to send out two foraging parties. The first, travelling by helicopter, would visit as many of Shinra’s military bases as possible before their fuel ran out. The second would sail to Midgar. This latter party would be composed of twenty W.R.O. troopers, three ex-Shinra biomedical scientists, the brewer, six chocobos, three carts, and Reeve himself, with a revolver that he didn’t really know how to shoot holstered under his arm. 

The topographic upheavals caused by the Weapons and Meteor had brought the sea right up to the very gates of Midgar. A harbour of sorts had been cobbled together from various pieces of junk, but the water was too shallow to accommodate Reeve’s ship. They dropped anchor a few furlongs offshore, and while they waited for a barge to come and offload them, Reeve stood on the deck surveying the busy building site known as Edge. To Reeve’s eyes, it look desperately vulnerable, unwalled and exposed to attack on every side… But then, he’d spent the last four months living in an island fortress, and before that, more years than he cared to count in a castle whose moat was made of air. 

Yet Edge didn’t  _ feel _ unsafe. No one at the dock asked to see their papers. No armed guards demanded money to let them pass. It seemed people could come and go from this settlement as they pleased. One could hardly call it a pretty place, but the signs of economic revival were everywhere apparent. New apartment blocks were being constructed. Tall cranes stood out against the sky, swinging girders into place. Pipes werebeing laid; spools of electrical wire as big as dining tables sat on street corners, waiting for the workers to finish putting up the power poles. Reeve and his team walked the length of the main street. He saw a cooperative society, a primary school, a maternity clinic. Most of the buildings were two, three, four stories high and more. Laundry lines had been strung across the streets, sheets and smalls fluttering in the breeze. The people of Edge walked confidently, with purpose. The smell of woodsmoke and cooking fat filled the air. 

Whoever was in charge here was doing a good job. 

As for Old Midgar, his life’s work, his pride and joy - Reeve had mentally prepared himself for the tangled mess of scrap metal he had seen from above when he flew to Junon. At ground level, though, Midgar looked astonishingly unchanged. The plate still seemed to float above the ground on its delicate fretwork of supports. All of the reactors were intact. And it was so  _ vast _ , looming over plucky little Edge. At sunset, the entire settlement must lie in its cold shadow. What a monument to man’s unlimited belief in himself! And how sturdy its construction! 

“Ah no, are we gonna have to  _ climb _ all the way up to the plate?” asked one of the troopers.

They skirted the perimeter, looking for easier access topside. Signs warned “Danger, contaminated area” and “Proceed at your own risk,” but Reeve had to wonder how seriously anybody took these warnings. The ruin was a hive of activity. Gangs of what were clearly organised labourers were mining it like a quarry, extracting anything and everything that could be of use: steel beams, sheets of aluminum, nuts and bolts, copper wiring, even broken bits of furniture to be sold as firewood, each item stacked in neat piles in areas from which the rubble had been cleared. Other workers came and went with wheelbarrows and chocobo carts. 

“Hey, can we help you?” a foreman shouted.

“Just looking,” Reeve shouted back.

The foreman waved hand. “Carry on then.”

When they came to the tragedy that was sector seven, they all instinctively averted their eyes. But the brewer said, “It was here. My brewery. The coppers are in here.”

Reeve was aghast. “Are you serious?” 

“You don’t understand, sir. They were beauties.” Did the man have tears in his eyes?

“I’m not going in there,” said the trooper who hd spoken before. “No way. No  _ way _ .”

“Surely they’ll be… “ Reeve didn’t want to say  _ completely flattened _ . It seemed too brutal.

“Please let me just look,” begged the brewer. “I’ll go in by myself, I don’t mind. Please.”

Reeve wasn’t about to let him do that. “Any volunteers?”

Reluctantly, bravely, four of the troopers raised their hands. 

“Don’t take any unnecessary risks,” said Reeve “When you’re done, go back to the ship and wait for us.”

He and what remained of his team walked on. Eventually they came to the place where the southern trunk road descended from the plate to the ground. Miraculously, it was still intact. Or maybe not so miraculously…  _ After all _ , thought Reeve,  _ I built it to last.  _

They found a crowd of children hanging around on the upper plate, climbing in and out of the shattered houses as if the ruins of Midgar were their own private adventure playground. “Do your mothers know you’re here?” Reeve demanded.

“I dunno, mister, does yours?” a cheeky boy retorted. 

An older girl came running up to them. “Hey, you goin’ in? You’ll need a guide. Only fifty gil.”

“I think I can find my own way, thanks,” Reeve gently rebuffed her.

He soon learned how wrong he was. The ways he’d known were gone, blocked at every turn by precarious mounds of bricks and roof tiles, by streets buckled like tectonic plates, by gaping holes through which the slums could be glimpsed a dizzying fifty meters below. There was nothing for it but to turn back and pay the child her gil. “Whatcha wanna go to the warehouses for?” she demanded, eyeing them suspiciously. “There’s nothing left there. It all got took.”

He insisted, but she was right: they found the Sector Eight warehouses empty, looted. This kid was the one who understood his city now. He thought about the main warehouses over on the other side, in Sector Five. It would take at least a day to reach them. They’d have to camp in the ruins overnight. Reeve didn’t fancy the prospect. 

“What about the Shinra Building?” suggested one of the technicians. “The SOLDIER floor.”

Reeve wished she hadn’t said it. Because now they’d have to do it. Too many people were counting on them, and the likelihood of finding stimulant on the SOLDIER floor was too high to ignore. 

“Shinra Tower’s haunted,’ said the girl. “If you want me to take you there, it’ll be a hundred gil.”

Forty-nine flights of stairs to the SOLDIER floor. Sixty-five to his own floor. Reeve felt nauseous just thinking about it.

“We’ve only a couple of hours of daylight left,” he said. “Let’s go back to to the ship for now. We’ll tackle the Shinra building tomorrow.” He was eager to find Seventh Heaven and talk to Tifa. 


	8. Tifa

A bell rang as he opened the front door into the bar. Several dozen pairs of eyes turned his way. They looked him over, marked him as a stranger, decided he was harmless, and returned to what they’d been doing before he walked in, chatting, drinking, playing chequers, throwing darts. 

First impressions: a busy, popular bar with a friendly buzz. A clean and homely place. Exactly what he would have expected of her. Framed photos on the walls, fans turning sluggishly overhead, zinc countertops gleaming, a menu chalked on a child’s blackboard. And there was the woman herself, as beautiful as ever, polishing glasses while she shared a laugh with an obviously infatuated customer. Superb thought her cooking might be, Reeve made no doubt Tifa Lockhart was Seventh Heaven’s main attraction. 

She looked happy… In her element, in fact…. And yet… And yet - Was it right, he wondered, that a hero of the Jenova War should be slaving away anonymously in what amounted to little more than a slum, cooking and cleaning and pulling pints for a living? If this world knew what it owed her, they’d be putting up statues to this woman; they would raise a mansion to house her glory. She would never have to do another day’s work in her life. 

He approached the bar. She turned to look at him. Her eyes were quick and intelligent: he saw everything click into place. Excusing herself, she came over to him and said, “You’re Reeve, aren’t you?”

He remembered this about her: her warmth, her welcoming smile, the way she made you feel you had one hundred per cent of her attention. Like a friendly campfire, she drew people in and got them talking, though she said so little herself.

“Cloud said you might drop by. I’ll be closing up soon, then we can talk. Would you like something to eat while you wait? Today’s special is curry and chips.”

The food was delicious. The beer was ice-cold. The hum of conversation was soothing.  _ I could get used to this _ , thought Reeve. In Seventh Heaven, one could pretend Meteor had never fallen. 

The customers grumbled when she rang last orders, but they didn’t give her any trouble. He wondered how often she’d had to use her fists before they got the message. She pulled another beer for Reeve and one for herself and came to sit with him. 

“Well,” she said, “So you’re the man behind Cait Sith. I was expecting you to be - “

“Younger?” 

She smiled. “Older. You were on Shinra’s Board of Directors, after all.”

“How are the others?” he asked her. “I’ve been out of touch, but I’m sure you hear from them.”

“Not really….” 

She told him what little she knew. Cid had returned to his old life, building airships in Rocket Town. Barret had left to wander the world. He was searching, she said, for forgiveness. Yuffie had gone back to Wutai, Nanaki to Cosmo Canyon. And as for Vincent - “He just got up and left like a stranger who sits next to you on a train for a few stops,” she laughed. “So now we’re down to Cloud and me. And Marlene. It’s really good to meet you at last, Reeve.” She sounded as if she meant it. 

“Tell me about this town,” he said. “It seems well-organised.”

“It is. We have running water, proper sewage, garbage collection once a week, and a primary school opened last month. Oh, and a public library, too.”

“Very civilised. Who’s running the show here?”

“No one. Or rather, everyone. We have neighbourhood assemblies, where anyone can say their piece. We elect neighbourhood leaders, and they work together on a council. We also have a planning council that’s appointed by the leadership council. We’re discussing now whether we should have a mayor.”

“A sophisticated system.”

“It seems to work.”

“Whose idea was it?”

Tifa looked thoughtful. “I don’t know if it was anyone’s idea. It just seemed to grow by itself. In the very early days there were some soldiers from the Junon barracks trying to run this place as if they owned it. Their leader was a brute called Kylegate. He came and went between here and Kalm, and one day he went and didn’t come back. I heard someone killed him. He must have had a lot of enemies.”

Reeve nodded. “I’ve been to Junon. It’s a den of thieves. I haven’t been to Kalm, but I hear it’s worse. Two gangs of thieves waging a turf war. Out in the Grasslands armed bandits fight pitched battles against armed farmers; every farmhouse has become a fortress, and the fields go untended. Yet here everything seems peaceful and law-abiding. How do you do it?”

“I think most of our potential troublemakers have either smartened up or cleared off,” said Tifa. “Here in Edge, known troublemakers have a tendency to - disappear.”

“Vigilantes?”

“It seems like it.”

The likeliest candidate was - “Cloud?”

Tifa laughed. 

“Not - you?” 

“I honestly don’t know for sure who it is, but I’ll tell you what I’ve seen. Our old friends the Turks - the red-haired delinquent, the skin-head, and that crazy girl - “

“Reno, Rude, and.. I don’t remember the girl’s name.”

“Elena? Anyway, yes. They’re in and out of town, slinking around in the shadows. They’ve popped in here for a drink once or twice.”

“And you  _ serve _ them?”

“We serve everybody, Reeve, no questions asked. The past is the past. To tell you the truth, and I never thought I’d hear myself say this, I’m glad to have them. Their visits have a tendency to coincide with the sudden departure from town of certain undesirables.”

“You think the  _ Turks _ are your vigilantes?”

“I think they have a lot to atone for. If they’ve decided to use their skills for the public good, I’m hardly in a position to criticise them. My hands aren’t exactly clean either. We all do what we can. Cloud tells me you’re building an army.”

How smoothly she did that, turning the conversation away from the Turks and towards his own sins, making a simple statement of fact sound like a gentle accusation. 

“It’s a peace-keeping force,” Reeve protested. “Of volunteers.”

“And where have you been keeping the peace?”

“Well - we’re still in training - “

“It would be nice if the road between here and Kalm were safe,” said Tifa, her wine-coloured eyes boring into his own. “I’d love to take Marlene to visit Aerith’s mother. Poor Mrs Gainsborough, she’s had such a troubled life, it would be wonderful if she could enjoy some peace in her old age.”

“Can’t Cloud - “

“Cloud is busy,” said Tifa, making it clear the topic of Cloud was not open for discussion.

Just then the lights flickered and died, plunging the bar into a darkness that lasted only moments before the power revived to a sepia half-glow. “Brown-out,” said Tifa resignedly. “There must be a problem somewhere. We’ll be on load shedding in half an hour, anyway.”

“Where are you getting your electricity from?”

She hesitated, looking uncomfortable. “Reactor Number One,” she admitted.

“It’s working?”

“It took a little coaxing, but…”

“The repairs have held, then? After - “ But he couldn’t say _after _ _ you blew it up.  _ He just couldn’t say it. They’d been enemies then. The past was the past. 

“Yes. It’s working.”

Reeve’s heart swelled with pride. Just as, he supposed, a parent’s might, upon hearing that the child he’d thought lost forever was standing at the front door, a little bruised and battered maybe, but still alive. Still alive.

“I know it’s terrible,” Tifa was saying. “I know we shouldn’t, but what can we do? If we don’t have power, people will die. Right now there’s no alternative. Barret’s out there looking, but... It will take time. And manpower. And money we don’t have. And people don’t believe, Reeve. They don’t understand why it’s wrong to use mako. Even after everything we’d been through, you try telling them, and they refuse to believe it. They’re talking now about getting another one of the reactors operational. It’s what people want. Cloud and I can’t fight them all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The line about Vincent being like someone who sits next to you on public transport for a few stops comes direct from OTWTAS: Case of Tifa. It's so perfect, it cannot possibly be improved upon.


	9. Vincent

She insisted he stay the night. “Cloud’s away,” she said, “So you can have his room. He won’t mind.” It saddened Reeve to learn they slept in separate bedrooms. He guessed it saddened Tifa, too, though she gave so little away it was hard to know for sure. The next morning she was up at dawn, cooking him a breakfast of eggs and sausages and fried bread, packing a lunch that included a large earthenware bottle of home-made lemonade. 

“Please be careful,” she said. “I really don’t think you should be going in there at all. They say it could collapse at any moment.”

Reeve wasn’t so sure about that. In his professional opinion, Midgar had done all the collapsing it was going to do. Barring any other unforeseen calamities, whatever was standing now would remain standing for the next few centuries, a rusting monument to his own engineering skills and humanity's hubris. 

“Who says that?” he asked her.

“People. Everybody. It’s on the news.”

“You have news?”

“We have a radio station. And a newspaper, it comes out once a week. And they’re working on getting the cell towers working again.”

“This little town of yours is a paradise,” he told her. “Make sure you take good care of it.”

“Don’t worry, we are. And remember what I said about Kalm.”

This time around, Reeve and his party took the railway line up the central pillar. From there, an hour’s walking - scrambling, really, up and down piles of rubble on their hands and knees - brought them to the front entrance of the Shinra building, close enough to Reactor One to hear its distant hum. Just like old times: the city’s heartbeat, faint but not extinguished, throbbed in the metal under his feet. Homesickness for the world they had lost overwhelmed him. If he had been alone, he would have sat down right there on the front steps of his tower and wept with grief and longing. The old days hadn’t been all bad, had they? He hadn’t done everything wrong, had he? Surely some of it had been  _ wonderful _ . Surely, surely he need not feel ashamed for sometimes wishing those days would return. It was a hopeless wish, after all. A silly indulgence.

“All right,” he said to his team, “Let’s get this over with.”

They expected to find the building teeming with wildlife - deenglow, hedgehog pies, ahriman, and the sword dances that had once infested the ventilation ducts - but came across nothing worse than a lone kimara bug too weak from starvation to pose a threat. The pests in the Shinra Building had lived mostly off human garbage. Now that the humans were gone, Reeve supposed the wildlife had been forced to leave as well, in search of food. 

He was proud to see how well his tower had stood up to Meteor’s assault, and how solid it felt under his feet. The stairs were usable. Going up them felt like ascending a mountain; there seemed no end to it. They all needed frequent rests. 

From the forty-ninth floor, Reeve went on alone. He hadn’t been back to his office since Weapon’s attack, and if he were to be overcome with emotion, he didn’t want any eyewitnesses. 

The door to his office had jammed. Reeve had to throw all his weight against it. Stumbling into the room, he saw a dark humanoid shape perched in the empty window, silhouetted against the bright noon-day sky. Awkwardly he fumbled for the gun he didn’t know how to fire. 

“Reeve,” said a deep, familiar voice.

Slowly Reeve lowered his hand. “Vincent?”

They were sixty-five stories in the air. He didn’t want to move any closer to that open window. Not until he knew which Vincent he was dealing with. “Can you - can I see your face?”

As lightly as a cat, Vincent sprang from the window, leapt right over Reeve’s desk, and landed delicately on both feet an arm’s breadth away, his cape fluttering and twitching behind him like a thing with a mind of its own. 

“Ah,” said Reeve, “You  _ are  _ you.” He was somewhat, but not entirely, relieved. The Vincent in front of him was a decent enough chap. A bit humourless and old-fashioned, perhaps, but one could hardly blame him for that. What made Reeve uneasy were the things that lurked inside Vincent, those avatars of rage and pain that so closely resembled the terrifying, but entirely imaginary, monsters of Reeve’s own childhood, the ones that lurked in the darkest corners of his bedroom. The ones his mother had  _ promised _ him were not real. 

“Vincent, what are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you.”

As an answer, it made sense and yet it made no sense. Vincent wasn’t given to social calls. Why would he want to see Reeve? And how had Vincent known he would be here, today, now? Could it be - “Have you see Tifa?”

“Tifa?” Vincent frowned. “No.” His tone added,  _ why would you mention this woman? _

“Have you been waiting long?”

“Time is a meaningless construct. Why are you here?”

How did Vincent always manage to make him feel as if he were on trial? “I merely came to collect a few things. Spare parts for Cait Sith, and some -”

“Do you intend to revive Shinra?”

“What?” Reeve exclaimed. “No! Why would you think that?”

“I saw the Turk girl in Nibelheim.”

“What?” cried Reeve, louder this time. 

“You are not the one who sent her there?”

“What - No, of course I’m not. I have nothing to do with the Turks, and anyway, do you think they would take orders from  _ me _ ? In their eyes, I’m a traitor. I’m just about the last person who’d want to revive Shinra - and even if I did, which I don’t, it wouldn’t be possible. It is not a thing that can be done. Look around you, Vincent, look at this building. It’s a wreck. Shinra’s extinct. There’s nothing left. I’m working with a group of volunteers on Gannet Island. We’re a peace-keeping - “

“I don’t care what you’re doing,” said Vincent. “If you’re not the one giving the Turks their orders, then who is?”

“How would I know?”

“You’re Shinra.”

“Me? What about you? Talk about  the pot calling the kettle black. If anyone knows who’s giving the Turks their orders, it’d be someone who used to be a Turk himself, like - Oh!“ Reeve exclaimed as a thought struck him. “What about Veld? Have you thought of him?”

“Veld?”

“It’s probably him.”

“Where is he?”

“The last time I saw him, he was in Junon - “

Vincent leapt into the air, swooped out the window, and almost instantly vanished from sight. Reeve felt so queasy he had to sit down. Sixty-five floors, and not a moment’s hesitation, not even a second glance. He didn’t know whether Vincent was flying away like a bat or climbing down like a spider, but - Either way, he preferred not to look. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In answer to Reeve's question, from Case of Shinra: "Following Elena's suggestion, they [the Turks] spread rumours that Midgar was going to collapse. Many people left believing the rumours. Even without rumours it wouldn't be long before Midgar, now a nest for disease filled with debris, was deserted. However, Tseng wanted the place deserted as quickly as possible. There were many of Shinra's secrets in Midgar and he wanted to avoid the refugees getting their hands on the weapons."


	10. Gun

All in all, Reeve would say the expedition to Midgar had been a success. His team had managed to recover two crates of stimulants from a supply locker on the SOLDIER floor. The brewer hadn’t been able to reclaim his vats - all trace of them had vanished, no doubt taken by salvage merchants months ago, possibly even before Meteorfall - but knowing for certain that they were gone seemed to have given him the closure he sought. Reeve himself had been able to collect the parts he needed to repair Cait Sith. The flourishing town of Edge filled him with hope for the future. Reconnecting with Tifa had been a pleasure - and she’d given him an idea for moving the W.R.O. forward. 

Back at W.R.O. Headquarters, he found events had stolen a march on him. A delegation of Grasslands farmers was waiting to ask him for the W.R.O.’s assistance in eliminating the bandits who’d been raiding their farms for months now. 

“Are we ready?” he asked the Brigadier.

“If we’re not ready now, we’ll never be,” the Brigadier replied. “The troops are itching to see some action. Let’s do it.”

The W.R.O.’s first peacekeeping mission began with a pitched battle on the plain north of the Zolom Swamp, continued with a sweep through the bandit’s known hideouts, and concluded with a shootout in the Mythril Mines, where a gang of hardcore outlaws chose to make their last stand. Total casualties: bandits, 475; W.R.O., 2. As the Brigadier wryly observed, their enemy had never really stood a chance against the W.R.O.’s Shinra weaponry. Several hundred bandits were taken prisoner. Reeve’s first thought was to send them to Edge, where they might learn to be good, or, if not good, at least useful. He wrote a letter to the leadership council asking if they’d be willing to accept a couple of chain gangs, and received a polite letter back declining his offer. Every man, woman or child who set foot in Edge automatically became a free citizen, they explained. The city of Edge did not believe in slavery.

“Slavery, pfft,” Reeve complained to Cait Sith as he fiddled with a tricky bit of wiring. “What am I supposed to do with these thugs? Turn them loose? I suppose in Edge they give their criminals a little smack on their naughty wrists. Oh, of course, I forgot, they don’t have any bad guys. Their pet Turks deal with all that dirty business for them.” Reeve was in a sour frame of mind that day. 

“Anyone who doesn’t work, doesn’t eat,” he told his prisoners, and sent them off under armed guard to re-open the old coal mines on the coast north of the Grasslands. It would be dangerous work: the mines were old and prone to flooding; the only seams of coal worth exploiting were deep down and far out under the sea. But such had life been before the advent of mako energy. And such it was again.

Word of their victory over the bandits spread. Soon a group calling themselves Concerned Citizens of Kalm were knocking on the W.R.O.’s door, imploring the peacekeepers to come and clean up their city. Mindful of his promise to Tifa, Reeve was happy to oblige. Casualties: W.R.O., nil; thieves, racketeers and extortionists, 2. There was very little actual fighting. Most of the scoundrels packed their bags and scarpered hours before the peacekeepers arrived, in the manner of rats abandoning their nest at the first whiff of a cat in the house. One of the two casualties killed himself. The other had his head bashed in for him by a woman whose daughter he had raped. Her husband cut off what was left of his head and jammed it onto a curtain pole. 

Some of the gang members tried to escape retribution by blending in with the general population. Three of them were unlucky: their victims remembered their faces, laid hands on them, and dragged them into the main square, where an ad hoc town hall meeting swiftly convened. “What shall we do with these criminals, who have tormented us for so long?” the angry mother demanded, her bloody hands raised in the air. At her side, her husband brandished his grisly trophy. 

The people shouted back, “Hang them.”

Reeve, watching and listening from the sidelines, fought his thoughts returning to the boy whom people now called the Idiot President. What had he said?  _ Human beings are not naturally good. A little fear is necessary to control them _ .  _ Without it, there’s only mob rule.  _ For one so young and so spoiled, Rufus had occasionally been quite prescient. Had events turned out only slightly differently, it might have been Reeve’s head the mob was baying for right now. 

_ That is something which must never be allowed to happen _ , he resolved. 

* * *

For two days and nights the good citizens of Kalm exacted their vengeance, rooting the gangsters out of their bolt-holes, dragging them into the light, and executing justice. The Brigadier asked Reeve, “Ought we to put a stop to it?” 

“No,” said Reeve, “It has to run its course.”

By asking around, he found where Aerith’s mother was living. He set W.R.O. troopers to guard her house, and warned her to stay inside. “Are  _ you _ responsible for this madness?” she demanded. “It reeks of Shinra.”  _ No, it doesn’t,  _ he thought.  _ It’s the opposite of Shinra.  _ To Mrs Gainsborough he merely said, “There was evil in the world before Shinra existed. We’re doing the best we can.” 

When at last their bloodlust was slaked, the calm that came after the storm settled upon the city. Reeve summoned everyone to the town square to elect a mayor. Three names were shouted louder than anyone else’s. One of them was the angry mother, Amelia Bergerac. By an overwhelming show of hands, she was elected. 

“We should establish a permanent garrison here,” said the Brigadier. 

“Yes,” Reeve agreed, then added. “But they shouldn’t be locals. We need our troops to maintain their objectivity.”

“Good thinking, sir. Also, we should set up checkpoints on the Kalm-Midgar highway. Post a list of our most wanted outlaws. We should offer bounties for them, dead or alive. We could pay bounties for monsters too. Not such big ones, obviously.”

Reeve called on the new mayor in her office to ask what contributions Kalm intended to make towards the cost of maintaining the rule of law. He said, my peacekeepers (because he never used the word  _ army _ ) are all volunteers, but they still require food and shelter, water and transport, guns and ammunition. I need to be confident you are someone I can work with. 

She promised to give him whatever he asked for. In return, she had a request of her own. Kalm was full of orphans. Many of them had come originally from Midgar, and one could say they were not really Kalm’s responsibility. “These kids, they’re the root of the problem,” she said. “We don’t want them here. We’ve been swamped. We don’t even have an orphanage any more. Shinra ran that. These kids have nobody to look after them, so they go feral and turn into little criminals to survive. Can’t your organisation do something with them?”

Reeve didn’t know what, but he didn’t know how to say No, either. 

And so he returned to the W.R.O. headquarters on Gannet Island with some two hundred snot-nosed, scabby-kneed, lice-ridden children in tow. They all needed to be scrubbed, shaved, disinfected, clothed, and fed. They all needed somewhere to sleep. “Should we start a school?” Reeve wondered, a little helplessly. There were just so many of them.

“Don’t waste their time,” said the Brigadier. “Boot camp’s what these kids need. Instill some discipline. Then they can make themselves useful. Pair ‘em up with a peacekeeper, teach ‘em some practical skills. That’s the kind of education the young uns’ll be needing from now on.”

* * *

An envoy from Junon arrived at their gates. She wore civvies and had grown her hair long, but Reeve recognised her immediately: one of Veld’s ‘dead’ Turks, code-name Gun, an efficient, no-nonsense kind of woman with a reputation for talking straight and shooting straighter. She rode in on a petrol-powered motorbike and introduced herself as Emma Freeman. “I’ve got good news for you, Director,” she told Reeve. “President Aurum Pryce has been replaced.”

The hairs on the nape of Reeve’s neck started prickling, a not-entirely-unpleasant sensation. Pryce had been a thorn in his side. “Replaced? What does that mean?”

“Oh, you know,” said the Turk. “He’s where he can’t do any more harm. The people were tired of being squeezed. We're not lemons. Junon has a Mayor now. Mayor Bayliff Ostler. The Chief thinks you’ll find him much more amenable.”

“Did Veld send you here?”

She laughed at the suggestion. “The Chief just likes to keep an eye on things. We’ve all heard about what you achieved in Kalm, Director - “

“Commissioner,” Reeve interrupted.

“Beg pardon?”

“The Shinra Corporation is defunct and I’m no longer a Director of anything. These days, I’m the Commissioner of the World Regenesis Organisation.”

She smiled as if he’d said something naively amusing. “As you prefer, Commissioner. I’m here on Mayor Ostler’s behalf. He’d like to invite your organisation to work in Junon.”

“He’s looking for peacekeepers?”

“If that’s your preferred term, yes.”

Reeve offered her tea. She said she preferred coffee. “There’s only instant,” he apologised. “From before…”

In that case, she told him, he definitely needed to come to Junon. Down at the harbour, one could easily forget how close the world had come to utter annihilation. Trade was booming. So many ships carrying goods for sale were trying to get into Junon, they had to queue beyond the breakwater while they waited for a berth to unload. Whatever your taste in beverages - black tea, green tea, red tea, coffee, cocoa - you could find it in Junon market. Of course the prices were astronomical, but at least Mayor Ostler had opened the banks again. Capital was available for investment. Business opportunities abounded.  _ Abounded _ , she repeated. If Reeve took a trip up the river east of Junon, he would see that the old water-mills were back in operation, sawing planks and pressing paper. “We have loo roll in the shops again,” she gloated. “Of course it’s nothing like as good as what you have here - stockpiled from before, I assume? - but the quality is improving every day.”

“But,” she went on, “None of this will do us any good if we can’t guarantee the rule of law. The security forces we have now are not to be relied on. Too many of them were Pryce’s men. The Mayor would like you to conduct an audit, identify and remove the undesirables, and establish a proper police force. He’ll pay, of course.”

“What are you doing for power? Are you still running the underwater reactor?”

“For now, yes. We have no alternative sources of energy. But Mayor Ostler thinks we could build a hydro-electric plant on the river that would provide for most of our needs. The designs are complete. We have the technical know-how. What we need are the parts, you know, the whatchamacallit, the turbines.”

“You could cannibalise the mechanism from one of the Midgar reactors,” said Reeve excitedly, picturing in his mind how it could be done. 

“Oh, but we couldn’t just go in and take it,” protested the Turk (ex-Turk, erstwhile assassin, diplomatic envoy). “Edge claims sovereignty over everything in Old Midgar. Mayor Ostler was hoping you could help to broker a deal. Money is no object.”

Reeve could well imagine they had gil to burn. He’d never managed to reclaim the small fortune he’d transferred to the Junon branch of First Midgar when the Meteor crisis began. If he was going to strike a deal with Junon’s new mayor, he ought to make that one of his terms.  _ Give me back my money.  _

Which reminded him, “What are your colleagues up to in Edge?”

“My colleagues?”

“Rude and Reno, and that little blabbermouth whose name I don’t remember.”

The woman recoiled a little, as if he’d said something mildly offensive. “Her name’s Elena.”

_Ex-Turk,_ _my buttocks_, thought Reeve. _There’s no such thing an ex-Turk. What this woman is is a ex-dead Turk. Which means she’s a Turk, pure and simple. _

If this woman wasn’t working for Veld then she had to be working for Tseng. It could only be one or the other. 

“What about them?” she said. “My so-called colleagues?”

“My sources tell me they’ve got their thumbs deep in Edge’s pie. When I offered Edge the W.R.O.’s services, I was politely told to butt out. Apparently the Shinra assassins are taking care of it. ”

She shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I left the company before you did.”

“Are they working for Veld?”

“Veld couldn’t afford them,” she said without the trace of a smile. 

“Where’s Tseng? Is he still alive?”

The Turk hesitated. She seemed to be engaged in some kind of inner struggle, presumably over how far to trust him. Finally she said, “Even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you, sir. You’re doing good work here. Everyone says your organisation knows how to get the job done. Oh, and one more thing. Mayor Ostler says, can you send us some engineers to teach us how to build wave generators? We’re happy to pay whatever the going rate is.”

It was only after she’d set off on the road back to Junon that he remembered the mouthy little Turk, Elena, was her baby sister. 


	11. Yuffie

A one-eyed woman with a prosthetic arm arrived at their gates, having walked there on foot, she said, from Fort Condor, where in the days before Meteor she had fought with the local anti-Shinra resistance movement. The guards relieved her of a pistol under her arm, a knife in her boot, and a mastered fire materia in the carbon bangle on her wrist. Then they brought her to Reeve. “You were one of _ them _,” she spat accusingly. “What’s really going on here? Are you re-building Shinra?” 

Wearily he explained for the umpteenth time: volunteers, peace-keepers, reconstruction, rule of law. 

She called herself Dr Rui. She said she was a biomechanical engineer and had built her own arm. In these days anybody could claim to be anything. There was no way of checking people’s credentials. Those who wished to create a whole new identity for themselves could do so. What was really surprising, thought Reeve, was how few people tried. 

“Is it true you have a missing persons data-base?” she demanded. “I’m looking for my sister. Maybe you’ve heard of her. Her name is Shelke. Shinra took her for their pre-cog program. That was eight years ago. She was only ten years old.”

Reeve thought her chances of finding her sister were slim. From the little he vaguely remembered of the pre-cog program, all the subjects had burnt out and died. But he couldn’t, wouldn’t, tell her so. The company he’d once worked for had taken everything from this woman. He would not strip her of the one thing that kept her going. “If you join us,” he said, “The next time we go to Midgar, you can come along, see what you can find.” 

After all, one could never have too many engineers. 

* * *

Three radio technicians arrived from Kalm on a truck powered by the coal his work-gangs had dug out from under the sea. “We’re going to set up your cell mast,” they informed him. “We’ve already got full coverage in Kalm and Edge. It’s gonna be just like the old days! Next stop, Junon!”

* * *

Polly died. She had been sinking into resignation for a while now. Reeve wasn’t there when it happened. After they told him, he had to go away and sit alone for the rest of the evening, remembering the lovely girl who had come to his department straight out of university, so full of energy and ambition. He was glad she wasn’t suffering any more. He wished he could console himself with the thought that she was now reunited with Tyrrel, but he knew too much about the lifestream to believe that. When a person’s spirit energy returned to the planet, their consciousness, their individuality, was washed away. The best one could hope for was that a nugget of memory might survive, like the piece of grit at the heart of a pearl, around which a material might crystalise. _ We are all merely temporary _, he reflected. 

He felt that he had failed her. Yet he couldn’t put his finger on how, exactly. 

* * *

The great ninja Yuffie arrived at their gates on the stroke of a moonless midnight, astride a golden chocobo. Reeve wondered if she’d stolen it. Cait Sith would have been able to ask. 

“So you’re Reeve,” said Yuffie. She gave him a thorough once-over, walking around him several times, looking him up and down. “So. Hmm. I see. Yup.”

He couldn’t help smiling. “Do I meet with your approval?”

“Well, you look like a salary-man, all right. But I was expecting you to be - “ 

“Older?”

“Shorter. Somehow in my mind I just always pictured you being the same size as Cait Sith. You know, like a little midget puppet man in a cute midget suit. I _ never _ imagined the beard. You look like somebody’s dad. Has anyone ever told you that? Do you have kids? Are you married? It’s so weird how we fought side by side all that time, and I don’t really know anything about you.”

He offered her tea and biscuits. She asked for a beer and a bed for the next two weeks. “Come on, old war buddy, be a pal. I’m on a mercy mission. I’m looking for the materia that can cure the Midgar disease. We’ve got it bad in Wutai.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I’d hoped your country might escape the worst, being so far from the epicentre. The geostigma is bad everywhere, Yuffie. My scientists say it’s a new disease, and that there is no cure.”

“That’s what Nanaki says. He’s such a gloomster.” Yuffie smacked her fist into her palm. “I refuse to believe it. There’s got to be a cure, I just know it, and I’m not giving up until I find it. Oh, hey, Reeve, guess what? Remember those creepy Turk dudes who were always following us everywhere? The sleazy one and the shouty one and the bald one who had a crush on Boobs? You’ll never believe this. Like it’s literally the _ last thing _. They’re running a clinic for people with the Midgar disease. It’s over west of Kalm, in the hills. It used to be a Shinra resort.”

She was right: Reeve could not believe it. Turks as shadowy vigilantes were just about within the bounds of credibility. Turks as caregivers and healers? It strained the suspension of disbelief too far. “They’re up to something,” he said.

“I know, right? Up to no good, that’s their middle name. I just can’t figure out what. I had a good old snoop around but there’s nobody there except loads of sick people in wheelchairs and some eggheads in white coats and the four devils.”

“Four?”

“Yeah. The rat-fink’s there too.”

She wouldn’t name him. In Wutai, Tseng’s name was taboo. 

“How did you find out about this clinic?” he asked her. 

“Okay, it’s like this. I meet up with Nanaki from time to time, right? He’s been roaming around all over the place. Says he wants to see the world. I mean, I totally get it, I’m the same. Anyway, he was in the forest up round Nibelheim and he saw the blonde Turk trading with some hunters. Buying bear tails. So I said to Nanaki, what does she want _ bear _ tails for? Like, what use are bear tails? And he says ‘duh, I dunno’, and I’m like, heavy sigh, when Yuffie wants a job done properly she has to do it herself… So I get myself over to Nibelheim and I ask around and it turns out they use the tails to make some kind of medicine for the Midgar disease, which they have people who are sick with it up in Nibelheim too, by the way. It’s everywhere. Godo says it’s in the water.”

“That’s what we think,” agreed Reeve.

“So anyway, when these ears heard ‘medicine’, they immediately thought ‘cure’. So I tracked Blondie back to their clinic. But they don’t have a cure. I found this one lady who was walking with a stick by the edge of the woods and I managed to have a quick word with her. I told her I had a sister who was sick too. I asked her if they had a cure and she said no, it was just a painkiller. Then I had to make myself scarce because I could see Blondie coming.” 

“It’s a stimulant,” said Reeve. “It relieves the symptoms. So, they make it?.”

“Yeah. I was thinking of helping myself to a few bottles from their supply. I mean, it’s selfish for Shinra to hog it all for themselves, isn’t it? Oh my god -” she gasped and sat up - “D’you think that’s what their scheme is? Cornering the market in the only medicine that treats Midgar disease? They could make a killing. Which is kind of their business anyway. Oh my god, that is _ so _ wrong. When so many people are suffering! If there’s something that can help, it ought to be shared freely to everyone that needs it, that’s only fair. Oh, man, Reeve - I am so hungry, I could eat my own chocobo. Don’t you guys have any real food around here?”

He took her to the mess hall, where they were serving fish stew, potatoes, and rice pudding. Yuffie shoveled the food down in huge forkfuls. “So delicious,” she mumbled. Reeve would have sworn the girl could eat her own weight in food. “I don’t know where you put it all,” he laughed. “You must have hollow legs.”

“Omigahd, haha, such a dad joke, Reeve.”

A uniformed volunteer stopped by their table. “Excuse me - please forgive the interruption - but I couldn’t help wondering... Is it true? Are you _ the _ Yuffie Kisaragi? The hero of the Jenova War?”

Yuffie stared at Reeve. _ They know? _ she mouthed. 

“I would be so honoured,” said the volunteer, “If you would let me shake your hand.”

“Just quickly, then,” said Reeve. “She’s come a long way, she’s our guest, and she’s tired and hungry.”

Three more interruptions followed in quick succession. Reeve had assumed the great ninja would bask in the adoration of her fans, but after the fourth act of homage, he was surprised to see tears glistening on her eyelashes. “Are you all right, Yuffie?”

“I’m fine,” she insisted, fiercely rubbing her eyes with the same fist that clutched her fork. “It’s just… Back home, back in Wutai, nobody’s _ ever _ thanked me. And that - it kind of hurts, you know? I mean, it’s not like I did it so people would fawn all over me or anything… But back home, nobody even _ believes _ it. I told them all about it and they said I was _ lying _ . They said, ‘Oh, we all know you and your tall tales, Yuffie’. I _ told _ them we fought Sephiroth in the crater and that if it wasn’t for me and Cloud and you and all, Meteor would have smashed right into the earth and killed _ everything _ , and they said, ‘Who do you think you’re fooling, girl? The white devil’s been dead for years.’ And I couldn’t say, ‘Yeah but he came back to life’. I mean, even I can hear what _ that _ sounds like. Godo thinks Bahamut summoned the Meteor to punish us for our sins, and Leviathan sent the lifestream to redeem us. That’s how he explains it. He’s gone all religious on me. ‘Can’t you repent my wayward daughter? Can’t you see we’ve been blessed with a miracle?’ And I’m like, no, Dad, it was _ me _.”

Reeve called for another beer and set it before her. “Yuffie, even if nobody else knows or believes the truth, you and I know what we did. It’s because of us that the world goes on. And that’s why, as we move forward, we have to honour the commitment we made to this planet every day of our lives. We thought the path we were on would end when we’d defeated Sephiroth. But it hasn’t, has it? It winds on and on into the future, over the hills and out of sight. Our victory against Sephiroth was only the beginning. Countless more battles lie ahead of us, and it might be the case that even when we come to the end of our lives, we won’t be able to say with any certainty whether we’ve won or we’ve lost...”

He tailed off. Yuffie was staring at him as if he’d lost his mind.

“Oh my god,” she breathed. “Oh. My. God. Tifa keeps telling me to settle down and Nanaki say I should calm down and Cloud shrugs, like, ‘just do whatever, kid’, but Reeve, you, you, Reeve, you _ get _ it. Why are you so wise? What you just said is _ so _ true. We have to keep fighting, no matter what.”

Reeve thought he could see a way for Yuffie to make herself useful, but he didn’t want to spring it on her while she was tired and emotional. For the next two weeks she kept herself busy exploring the coast and the hills in her quest for a cure, and it was only as she was getting ready to depart that he approached her and said, “Yuffie, can you do something for me?”

“Sure, chief, anything.”

“You travel around a great deal. You’re skilled at making yourself invisible. In fact, one could say, without much exaggeration, that you’re a master of undercover detective work.”

Yuffie’s chest swelled. “Yeah, I guess you _ could _ say that.”

“When you come across anything that strikes you as being of potential interest to this peace-keeping operation, do you think you could pass it along to me?”

“You mean, like, intelligence?”

“Exactly. Do you have a PHS?”

“No - “

“I’ll get you one.” He went to the storehouse and came back with the latest model, a gift from the Mayor of Kalm. He pressed it into her hand. “My number’s on speed dial. Keep in touch. You’re my Number One Intelligence Operative now, Yuffie. We’re fighting to make the world a better place. Anything you happen to hear, anything at all - Keep me informed.”

“Will do, chief.” She mounted her chocobo and gave him a sharp salute.

He waved her off from the gate. _ That is one hyper-energetic kid _, he thought. Like a little dog running all over the garden, digging for bones here, there and everywhere. Her approach might be a little scatter-gun, but her heart was in the right place. And her ability to turn up information almost at random might well prove invaluable to him. 


	12. The Monument

Reeve’s second trip to Junon was a triumph. The new Mayor was indeed quite as amenable as he could possibly have wished for, and a contract was arranged in which the W.R.O. would provide a volunteer force of peacekeepers for the city (the Mayor stipulated that they had to be at least fifty per cent ex-Shinra military) and technical expertise for the wave-power project, and in return the city of Junon would agree to feed and house the volunteers, pay them pocket money, give the W.R.O. full access to whatever remained of the Shinra weapons arsenal and transport fleet, make over to Reeve the full value of his bank deposits, with interest, in gold; and, finally, buy as much channel coal and bituminous shale as the W.R.O.’s mines could produce. A consortium of entrepreneurs were in the process of setting up a coal oil factory just south of the city, on the coast. 

En route back to W.R.O. headquarters he stopped off in Edge, to negotiate with the leadership council for the removal of the electricity-generating mechanisms from one of the dormant reactors. They were not unwilling, but the price they asked was steep. This irked him, a little. Those reactors were not the property of the citizens of Edge. If they belonged to anyone, then surely, legally, morally, they belonged to  _ him _ . Was he not the last surviving representative of Shinra, Inc? And, more pertinently, was he not the visionary who had given life to those reactors in the first place? 

The low point of his visit to Edge was an angry PHS call from Tifa. “What are you up to?” she demanded. 

“Could you explain what you mean?” he answered mildly. “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Recruiting Yuffie to work for you!”

_ Ah _ , thought Reeve,  _ so they’ve talked. _ “Can we be clear? Yuffie is not working for me. It’s a volunteer position. People from all over the world are volunteering with us, we’re a growing movement.”

“She’s an impressionable young girl. She ought to be at home, with her father, with her people, rebuilding Wutai. But what chance do they have of holding on to her, when you offer her the glamour and excitement of wandering round the world spying for you?”

“I think that’s a little unfair. Yuffie would be roaming the world regardless. I’m merely… “ 

What was the word he needed? Profiting? Benefitting? Using? None seemed sufficient to fend off Tifa’s accusation. 

“I guess someone like you would see no shame in being a spy,” she went on.

“Tifa, what have I done to offend you?”

He heard her take a deep breath. “This ‘heroes of the Jenova war’ thing. It has to stop, Reeve.”

That hurt. That actually hurt. He needed a moment to gather his thoughts. “Well,” he said at last, “What would you call us?”

“I wouldn’t call ‘us’ anything,” she shot back. “We did what we did because we owed it to the planet. You more than anyone, I’d say. We’re not heroes, Reeve, we’re just… The people who saw what needed to be done and did it. The only real hero was Aeris. She gave her life. You - when did you ever once put yourself in danger?”

“Heidegger and Scarlet nearly  _ killed _ me,” Reeve retorted, exaggerating only a little.

“Look, I can’t control what you say. That’s on your own conscience. But leave Cloud and me out of it. We want nothing to do with your W.R.O., Reeve. You can leave Barret out of it, too. We’re just ordinary people who want to be left in peace to get on with our regular lives. The last thing any of us want is notoriety.”

“That’s your choice,” said Reeve.

“Yes, it is.”

“And Yuffie is free to make a different choice. Just because you’ve chosen to disappear into the life of an anonymous domestic drudge, it doesn’t mean that - “

Tifa slammed the phone down on him.

_ I probably shouldn’t have said that _ , he reflected.

And yet, wasn’t it true? Anybody could run a bar. Tifa Lockhart should be running a country. The world was crying out for good leadership, and Tifa had chosen to turn her back on the people’s need. Well, maybe that was her way of atoning. By stifling herself. If that was how she chose to lead her life, so be it. She could hardly blame Reeve for stepping in to fill the void. . 

Tifa might think she spoke for Barret, but Reeve had his doubts. Barret craved recognition, respect. Reeve was willing to bet he’d leap at a leadership position. He’d been a union leader once upon a time in Corel. And the man knew coal. The W.R.O. might have a use for him, if he was interested. 

* * *

At the conclusion of his meeting with Edge’s leadership council, Reeve and his small entourage - all ex-Shinra military - left the town hall and made their way along the main street. This route took them through the central plaza, where something that looked like a monument was being built. He stopped to ask a woman about it. “It’s a memorial to human resilience and our own survival,” she told him. “You could say it’s a memorial to Midgar, too. It’s easy to dwell on everything that went wrong, and we all know the Shinra made some mistakes - but let’s be honest. We loved Midgar. I loved Midgar. It was a great city.”

“The greatest city ever built,” Reeve agreed.

“I want to cherish the good memories,” she told him. “That’s why I’m donating my time to help build this memorial. Most of us are volunteers. Including him.”

She pointed across the square. The man wore his customary blue suit, as if he had nothing to hide or be ashamed of, but even without the suit Reeve would have recognised him instantly: the height, the broad shoulders, the sunglasses, the shaved head, the air of ineffable menace. Reeve stiffened.

“Now, don’t be like that,” said the woman. “Everybody deserves a second chance.”


	13. Diplomatic Negotiations

He knew they would come. It was only a matter of time. He pondered his strategy. They normally moved in pairs. Should he arrest them when they came, put them on trial, hang Shinra’s guilt around their necks and let them take it with them to their graves? A tempting prospect. 

But…

Phrases like  _ statute of limitations _ and  _ non-retrospective jurisdiction  _ troubled his conscience . If the W.R.O., in its role as the world’s police force, started holding people to account for the crimes they’d committed under Shinra, where would it end? His own position was hardly unassailable. 

There were too many unknowns. How many of them were left alive? Who was giving them their orders? To what extent were they in control of Edge? Was Veld the one pulling the Junon mayor’s puppet-strings? 

Only two things were certain. The first was this: if he struck at them, they would strike back. He would never know another moment free from fear. 

The second was this: Whatever they were up to, he was already deeply implicated. Collaborating with the mayors of Junon and Kalm, doing business with the leadership council in Edge. Turning a blind eye to their vigilante activities, when peacekeeping was supposed to be the W.R.O.’s job. 

By the time they finally showed themselves, he had thought the matter through and come to a firm decision. 

They arrived by helicopter. The Shinra logo had not been erased from its sides. They were wearing their blue suits. They put down outside the front gates, showed the guards their Shinra I.D., and waited politely while security people ran through the clearance process. Warrant Office Biswas showed them into Reeve’s office, where two armchairs had been set out for them. Reeve stood up when they came in. He felt as if he were greeting representatives of a foreign power, one that might yet prove either hostile or friendly. 

“Tea?” said Warrant Officer Biswas.

“Coffee,” said Reno. “Black for me, cream and two sugars for her.”

The Turks sat. Reno jack-knifed into his seat, one arm slung over the back of the chair, left ankle resting on right knee. The blonde girl was a fidgetter. Reeve was also finding it difficult to sit still. He couldn’t completely suppress the deeply ingrained, habitual sense of dread crawling over his skin. 

“Nice place you got here, Commissioner,” said Reno.

“Are you running an orphanage?” asked the girl. “There’s an awful lot of children doing drill in the parade ground."

“You’ve been busy,” said Reno, nodding his head as if agreeing with himself. “You’ve done well, sir. You always were the man for building things.”

They wouldn’t have dared set foot here, in the very heart of his organisation, if they thought they had anything to fear from him. No, they knew he wouldn’t raise his hand against them.

“What do you want?” he demanded. 

“I bet running an operation like this doesn’t come cheap,” said Reno. “How are you doing for gil?”

“People give us donations.”

“Uh-huh. You find a lot of people got that kind of spare cash, these days?”

“I have some reserves of my own. If it’s Shinra money you’re looking for, you won’t find it here.”

“Ah, no, you got it backwards, sir. We’re not after money. But - “

_ Here it comes _ , thought Reeve.  _ Brace yourself. _

“You don’t own this facility, do you?”

Reeve was momentarily lost for words. He had literally never given the question of ownership a single thought. The facility had been here, he’d needed it, he’d taken it. Nobody else had had a use for it. 

“You’ve been treating this place and everything in it like it was your own personal property for almost a year now,” said Reno. “But it’s not yours, is it? It belongs to Shinra.”

Was that the best they could do? “There is no Shinra any more.”

“Yeah, well, maybe that’s where you’re jumping the gun, sir. Shinra Inc might be temporarily closed for business, but it’s still a legal entity, and its assets are the property of the Shinra family.”

“What family? Rufus is dead.”

The blond girl exclaimed, “That's - “

Reno kicked her. She grunted in pain, and fell silent. 

“That’s as may be,” said Reno. “Still doesn’t make this your property, does it?”

“Have you dug up some third cousin twice removed?” Reeve scoffed. “Or another one of the old man’s byblows?”

“Actually - “ the girl began.

Reno silenced her with a look. “Laney, I told you, I’ll do the talking. Drink your coffee. Look, Commissioner, I’m not saying we haven't done what you think. Okay? What I’m saying is, you don’t own this place, and your landlord feels it’s time you started paying some rent.”

“Rent!” Reeve exclaimed. “Why should I pay you rent? You’re nothing but five-gil hoodlums.”

“Well, I guess we can’t force you,” Reno shrugged. “But you really oughta think it over before you make a rash decision. You’ve been going round portraying yourself as this big champion of law and order. Stealing people’s property and refusing to pay them due compensation doesn’t sit so well with that image, does it? It sounds more like something Aurum Pryce would do. Or maybe, I dunno, all your talk is just blah blah blah bullshit, and this W.R.O. of yours is a handy cover for you to help yourself to whatever you like.”

“You’re a fine one to talk,” Reeve sputtered.

“I only see one person in this room going around making out like he’s here to save the world for peace and justice. Us, we know we got plenty of our own shit to atone for. Look, before you make up your mind, why don’t you just have a read-through of this rental agreement our legal department drew up? Laney - “

The girl withdrew a thick envelope from her inside jacket pocket and handed it to Reno, who handed it to Reeve. “Go on, Commissioner, have a gander. I think you’ll find it conforms to all the current by-laws in Junon, Edge,  _ and _ Kalm. Take your pick of jurisdiction.”

Reno settled back comfortably in his chair and closed his eyes. The girl - Elena - Gun’s sister, Reeve remembered - she kept watching him closely. She wasn’t the type to relax her vigilance for an instant. 

He unfolded the papers, noted the Shinra letterhead, and began to read.

When he came to the end, he put the papers down on his blotter, looked at Reno, and said, “A  _ peppercorn _ ?”

“Yeah, I think that’s the tradition. But it doesn’t have to be a peppercorn. It can be whatever you like. A pound of coal. A basket of strawberries. A bunch of flowers, hell, we don’t care. The point is, you recognise our ownership and we recognise your right to use this facility and everything that goes with it.”

“I thought - “

“Yeah, I know. You thought we’d screw you over.” He sounded a little weary.

“Yet the peppercorn rent seems more sinister, somehow.”

“Okay -” Reno pulled his chair forwards, rested his sharp elbows on Reeve’s metal desk. Reeve instinctively drew back. “It’s cards on the table time. The person I represent, they have a lot of respect for what you’re doing here, Commissioner. We’ve been keeping tabs on you for a while. At first, you know, to be honest, it all looked kind of dodgy. We thought you were building an army. But peacekeepers - that’s a project the person I represent can get behind. They’d like to support you in any way they can. Call it paying their debt to society.”

“Is it Tseng?” Reeve demanded. “Does he think he’s running Shinra now?”

Reno’s poker face didn’t slip an inch. A kind of confused, defiant pride flashed in Elena’s eyes.

Reno said, “The person I represent heard you’re looking to buy the mechanisms from the Number Six reactor.”

“Don’t those belong to him too?” said Reeve with a touch of sarcasm. “If he wants to be so helpful, why doesn’t he give them to me?”

“I never said the person was a guy,” said Reno. “Don’t jump to hasty conclusions. Edge council does a lot of good work. The person I represent doesn’t grudge them the gil. This person is willing to underwrite your hydro-electric project. Money’s no object - “

“I imagine it wouldn’t be, if they’re laying claim to the Shinra fortune.”

“ - all you need to do,” Reno went on as if he hadn’t been interrupted, “Is decide whether you want their help. Or not. Either way, though, you still gotta sign that rental agreement.”

“Or what?” said Reeve.

“Or you’ll see us in court.”

“Hah!” Reeve exclaimed. What a toothless threat! How had the mighty fallen! “Which court? Kalm? Junon? I think you’ll find my word carries more weight than yours in those cities nowadays.”

“You think so, huh?” A sliver of a smile curled Reno’s lips. He could not have looked less worried if he’d tried. Reeve didn’t like what that smile implied. “Well,” Reno added, “I guess we know how we can find out.”

“You’d seriously take me to court? Over a peppercorn?”

“It’s the principle of the thing. Respect for property rights. Rule of law, remember? The person I represent is a big, big fan of the rule of law. They’re offering you an alliance. If you want to turn them into your enemy, that’s up to you.” 

Reeve thought it over. That the W.R.O. did not own the Gannet Island facility was undeniably true. That he had campaigned for the return of stolen property in Kalm and Junon was also undeniably true. Whoever did lawfully own the facility had a right to claim compensation. If he, Reeve, tried to challenge that claim in a free, impartial court of law - which  _ of course _ was what he believed in, despite the words he’d uttered just now in the heat of the moment - he would lose. 

If, on the other hand, he gave these Turks a dusty answer and sent them away, refused their legal summons, threw the weight of his peacekeeping force against them, he might well win. But what would be the cost to his reputation? Possibly none. Shinra wasn’t exactly popular these days. But possibly the cost would be higher than was good for him, at least among thinking people who took the long view when it came to politics. Any government, or NGO, that set itself above the law was effectively declaring itself a dictatorship. 

He did not want to end up with his head on a curtain rod. Or burnt to a crisp in a fireball. Or with a katana buried in his spine. 

“I reckon it comes down to this,” said Reno, “Does the W.R.O. stand for doing what’s right, or for doing what’s convenient? Actually, sorry, I meant expedient. No, convenient. Hell, it comes to the same thing either way, doesn’t it?”

_ Damn it _ , thought Reeve.

He put up one last defense. “I can’t negotiate on the W.R.O.s behalf with some shadowy figure whose name I don’t know and who I’ve never met. That would be unforgivably reckless of me.”

“Yeah, but you know me, don’t you, sir?”

“Unfortunately, I do.”

Elena could stay silent no longer. “Our boss is a better man than you’ll ever be,” she cried, half-rising from her chair, fists clenched. “And braver too! You don’t know what he’s suffered - “

“Laney, shut up,” Reno hissed.

_ So it is Tseng _ , thought Reeve.  _ Well, well… _

Tseng was a man with whom he could do business. He’d always had a certain respect for the Chief Turk - had liked him enough to save his life back at the Temple of the Ancients. Now,  _ there _ was a debt that would take some repaying. Not a bad position to be in, all things considered. Tseng had blood on his hands like the rest of them, but he was also a man of principle - just a few principles, perhaps, but, such as they were, carved out of mythril. Tseng had understood the importance of Aeris, and she, sweet angel, rest her soul, had spoken kindly of him. If this was Tseng’s attempt at seeking redemption, it hardly behoved the Commissioner of the W.R.O. to stand in his way. And if Tseng really did have access to the Shinra billions, then this was an alliance Reeve couldn’t afford to pass up.

“I won’t have my hands tied,” he warned them.

“Understood,” said Reno. “As long as you understand the person I represent reserves the right to withdraw their support at any time, if you start taking this organisation of yours in a direction we don’t approve of.”

_ That financing would be an enormous help _ , thought Reeve. _It means I won't have to touch my own money. _ _ And if the W.R.O. keeps growing, in a few years, I won’t need their support any more… _

“All right,” he said, reaching for his fountain pen, “I’ll sign the contract.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a fantastic prompt. Totally *fantastic*. All four of the prompts I received were inspirational, so thank you, Kieron_ODuibhir! Of the four of them, in the end this one was the one that proved irresistible. I do love a nice bit of world-building. I don't feel I've done it justice, though. There isn't much of a plot; it's really just an extended Reeve character sketch. 
> 
> I am 110% open to suggestions for revisions, extensions, additions etc... In some ways I feel as if this is like a rough draft that has only partially got to grips with its subject. I've never felt more in need of a beta reader. Any recommendations, any at all, will be welcomed with open arms. 
> 
> Once again, thanks to Kieron_ODuibhir and to our heroic, tireless organisers of the FF7 Fanworks exchange for making this possible. I had a blast!


End file.
